An Agent-oriented Approach to Integrated Process Operations in Chemical Plants

Integration of process operations involves the coordinated management of operational tasks in a process plant. In the context of chemical process plants, these tasks can be categorised as data acquisition, regulatory control, data reconciliation, process monitoring, fault diagnosis, supervisory control, scheduling and planning. While each of these tasks is responsible for a particular function, they are also dependent on each other and thus cannot be treated in isolation – this is why integration is necessary. The focus will be on the use of agent-oriented techniques to achieve integration. Limitations of previous integration techniques in the context of chemical plants will be outlined and this will elicit the need for a more powerful software engineering paradigm utilising software agents. The main barriers to achieving integration will then be discussed and how an agent-oriented approach represents a logical solution to these problems. Finally, a pilot plant application of the proposed technique will be presented.