An overview of Capstone’s Production Management solutions:
Raw material tracking (a.k.a. stock tracking)
Complications abound in integrated processes with significant time delay between processing of a raw material and the finished product. These complications make it nearly impossible to determine the root cause for problems in the finished product. It’s also a challenge to correlate changes in the upstream process with quality parameters in the finished product.
Capstone’s raw material tracking solution addresses these problems by utilizing a material balance approach to “track” the product through all stages of processing. This provides accurate time-shifted comparisons of parameters at every point in the process – and can be achieved regardless of process flow complication or variability in production rates.
Benefits of Capstone’s raw material tracking:
- Improved troubleshooting for time-delayed processes
- Accurate correlation to changes through complicated integrated processes
- Proactive decision-making through visualization of upstream product properties in real-time
Tank inventory prediction and modeling
Another complication is introduced when integrated processes have storage capacity, or tanks, that can be greatly impacted by production changes on either end. In most cases processes are operated on the side of caution and rates are reduced when tank inventory approaches its limit (high or low). The result? Production may be lost because planned changes in upstream or downstream processes would have naturally prevented the tank inventory from being exceeded in the first place.
Capstone’s tank inventory solution delivers a complete picture of the tank inventory over a long horizon – providing production management with the information necessary to make the optimal decisions. Our solution also provides a scenario analysis component that enables production management to determine the “golden” production rates for each area of the integrated process – as well as plan for special scenarios (such as tank maintenance, plant shutdowns, maximum production, limited production, etc.).
Benefits of Capstone’s tank inventory prediction and modeling:
- Optimized production rates
- Improved coordination between scheduling and production
- Reduced process variability – which reduces unneeded production rate disturbances
- Ability to predict inventory violations for key components