(417a) Energy Saving from Process Design – a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Methodology

Energy saving is important and urgently needed in process manufacturing, which is energy intensive and takes ~75% of the total industrial energy use in US. To do the work, chemical engineers should take the lead role and process development & design has the greatest potential to achieve the goal.

However, it is very challenge to develop an optimal process design due to the complexity of the process. In general, there are four major challenges. First, the engineers or designers should have systematic knowledge and skills in process design. Second, we need to have an in-depth understanding of the whole studied process. Third, a successful process design implementation needs collaboration among designers, engineers, manufacturers, and operators. Fourth, a typical process design is a long-term development with dedicated specialists, which many companies especially small and medium sized companies could not afford.

To address the challenges, the author proposes a so called service oriented architecture (SOA) methodology. It is a framework to define the design scope and facilitate the work. Four case studies are presented which are based on the author’s industrial energy saving consulting work. It shows how the SOA methodology is applied into the real world and achieve accountable energy saving.