Chemical supply chains

FIGURE 6-1 The chemical supply chain. Courtesy of Professor Wolfgang Marquardt. 

To tackle these problems successfully, new concepts will be required for developing systematic modeling techniques that can describe parts of the chemical supply chain at different levels of abstraction. A specific example is the integration of molecular thermodynamics in process simulation computations. This would fulfill the objective of predicting the properties of new chemical products when designing a new manufacturing plant. However, such computations remain unachievable at the present time and probably will remain so for the next decade. The challenge is how to abstract the details and description of a complex system into a reduced dimensional space. 

Global models since being more strategic oriented less addressing chemical supply chain specifics required for tactical production planning such as change-overs or recipes... 

Garcia-Flores R, Wang XZ (2002) A multi-agent system for chemical supply chain simulation and management support. OR Spectrum 24 343-370... 

Figure 1 Integrated, high fidelity, multiscale process modeling of chemical supply chain.

Useful references that consider the complexity of chemical supply chains include [149]. 

Some work is also mentioned that calls for the integration of finances and other disciplines with key ideas of product engineering and the chemical supply chain. 

In parallel to this push for extending the borders of chemical process systems engineering to areas that have been traditionally the reserve of industrial engineers, a new concept of supply chemical chain was recently discussed in detail by Grossmann and Westerberg (2000), and in the United States National Academies report by Breslow and Tirrell (2003). The chemical supply chain extends from the molecule level to the whole enterprise. Breslow and Tirrell (2003) suggest that ... 

When the chemical supply chain is considered in the context of process design, one realizes that the chemical supply chain contains many of the elements of product design. Indeed, it deals with the chemistry, the selection, the manufacturing, and the supply chain of entire enterprises, single- or multi-company, as in the alliances that Stephanopoulos (2003) suggested, that deliver the product to the customer. 

Oh H.-C. and Karimi LA. 2004. Regulatory factors and capacity expansion planning in global chemical supply chains, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 43, 3364-3380. 

Chapter 4 Integrated planning of chemical supply chains... 

These requirements are given e.g. for the transport of raw and intermediate chemicals within a chemical production site. For trans-regional transports, most prominent examples for pipeline transports are crude oil and natural gas pipeUnes. However, also some basic chemicals such as Ethylene or Ammonia are transported via pipelines over long distances to connect partners in a chemical supply chain. ... 

In the previous chapters isolated planning problems in chemical industry are described, reviewed and modelled. These approaches allow analysts to model typical chemical production processes and logistical planning problems in chemical production networks. Chemical production networks consist of many chemical plants clustered at chemical production sites. Such networks can be seen as an important part of chemical supply chains (SC). In the scientific literature, there is no unique and concise definition what a SC is, but some common features are prevalent in most definitions ... 

Example 9 (Conceptual model of a chemical supply chain). To illustrate the proposed framework, in this example an exemplary chemical SC basically consisting of a core part of two chemical production sites is described. The example is inspired by the production network of Dow Chemical in Europe. The underlying real-world processes are not described in detail here. Instead, the resulting conceptual model after analysing the real world system is presented. All assumptions and models used are described in the following. Figure f.8 visualizes the production network. 

Figure 4.8 Exemplary chemical supply chain with two sites...

Components of chemical supply chain simulation models... 

Performance measures in (chemical) supply chain models... 

A regime of external conditions e has to be defined and integrated in the simulation model. This is referred to as a scenario. In common sense, a scenario comprises both, stochastic processes reflecting environmental conditions and the general structure of the modelled system. Typically, the focus of simulation is on the internal processes of a supply chain under a more or less specific environmental regime. E.g. in chemical industry an SC s revenues depend mainly on product prices that can be realized. Due to the highly competitive market for basic chemicals and the inflexibihty of (continuous) production processes in combination with immense capital commitment for production plants, the focus for optimization is on the internal processes of a chemical supply chain. 

Adhitya, A. and Srinivasan, R. Dynamic Simulation and Decision Support for Multisite Specialty Chemicals Supply Chain. Industrial Engineering Chemistry Research, 49 9917-9931, 2010. 

The present work is an important contribution to scientific literature from a methodological and application-oriented point of view. It develops systematically the basic elements for modelling complex chemical production networks and illustrates the benefits of advanced decision support systems in chemical supply chain management. We wish the book continued success and wide acceptance. 

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