Real-time process safety and systems decision-making toward safe and smart chemical manufacturing

The ongoing digital transformation has created new opportunities for chemical manufacturing with increasing plant interconnectivity and data accessibility. This paper reviews state-of-the-art research developments which offer the potential for real-time process safety and systems decision-making in the digital era. An overview is first presented on online process safety management approaches, including dynamic risk analysis and fault diagnosis/prognosis. Advanced operability and control methods are then discussed to achieve safely optimal operations under uncertainty (e.g., flexibility analysis, safety-aware control, fault-tolerant control). We highlight the connections between systems-based operation and process safety management to achieve operational excellence while proactively reducing potential safety losses. We also review the developments and showcases of digital twins paving the way to actual cyber–physical integration. Outstanding challenges and opportunities are identified such as safe data-driven control, integrated operability, safety and control, cyber–physical demonstration, etc. Toward this direction, we present our ongoing developments of the REal-Time Risk-based Optimization (RETRO) framework for safe and smart process operations.