Response surface analysis of a multi-product batch processing facility using a simulation metamodel

In a multi-product batch production environment, managers and engineers must have a robust understanding of the impact of both operational and environmental variables and their interactions on process throughput. This insight is never more important than when a new facility is designed and built. In this study of a particular company in the specialty chemicals industry, a general simulation metamodel was developed in order to understand better how plant design parameters could be optimized in order to maximize plant throughput under certain environmental conditions and with certain asset investment constraints. The simulation metamodel developed is essentially a deterministic, analytical representation of a detailed, discrete-event, stochastic simulation model that was previously developed and validated to study operational and scheduling issues. The development of the simulation metamodel for plant design, as a function of capacity and throughput, is described in this paper. This study exemplifies the application of detailed, discrete-event, stochastic simulation models to derive deterministic, analytical response surface representations for purposes of plant design and throughput analysis in the process industries.