Looking at the Cost: Using Flow Analysis to Assess and Improve Chemical Production Processes

Identifying process alternatives to reduce the cost of product manufacturing is a key objective in process development and optimization. This article starts out by presenting the fundamental principles of flow-based analysis methods. Material and energy flow analysis, with cost flow added, is then applied to chemical process development. An example shows that the method of charging cost to the flows that exit the production steps influences the recognizability of the cost reduction options. A more thorough analysis and understanding would be beneficial as a basis for identifying best-practice recommendations. For industrial use, the suitability of existing cost flow analysis tools could be improved by enabling the use of a variety of allocation methods, data exchange with standard tools in process engineering, and improved user interfaces.