Advanced Production Management for Chemical Plants: Design and Evaluation of KPIs Suitable for Comprehensive Management of Steam Heat Loss

Chemical plants are transforming from safe and stable to high-efficiency and decarbonized production. Efficient utilization and recovery of saturated steam, one of the major energy sources, are essential. However, in medium and large chemical plants with hundreds of steam-related facilities, the number of flow meters is limited, making it difficult to measure heat balance directly. Moreover, identifying the types of process disturbances that cause heat loss in real time remains challenging for less-experienced operators. This study proposes a method to define and visualize real-time heat balance indicators (heat input, heat output, heat loss, work) as heat key performance indicators (KPIs) by using existing process control data and to formulate disturbance KPIs that represent process disturbances based on engineering knowledge. The proposed methods were applied to a vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) process constructed using a dynamic process simulator. The results confirmed that the approach reduced the need for new sensors and assisted in identifying the causes of heat loss, as well as estimating unmeasured heat KPIs.