Computerized production planning and energy management

To reduce overall production costs, St. Lawrence Cement is implementing energy-cost reduction measures at its Mississauga plant. Two functions have been installed as an integral approach to power-cost reduction. These functions are: energy logistics, a production planning function to determine the best possible setpoints, starting from forecast shipments; and energy control, a continuous online supervisory control to ascertain that demand does not exceed the demand setpoints. These developments are described, with emphasis on energy logistics implementation, requirements for Proplan (a computer tool for production planning and budgeting), original initialization, energy-control implementation, and requirements for energy management.<>