Aspen Unified connects planning and scheduling to automate isolated processes 

 

Aspen Technology, Inc. has announced the new release of Aspen Unified to deliver the next generation of production optimization solutions that will transform business processes for the world’s refineries. The Aspen Unified solution brings planning and scheduling together in one environment to connect and automate isolated processes, maximize the yield of high value products, push closer to limits and drive improved margins.

 

Through a unified and visually intuitive flowsheet interface, a refinery’s planning and operations teams can easily build and sustain models as well as gain a more accurate view of current performance and plant constraints. The Aspen Unified solution is built to reduce margin leakage across the different operational silos and to improve consistency in modelling data between planning and scheduling. With AspenTech’s dynamic optimization technology—Aspen GDOT—Aspen Unified aligns plant operations with economic conditions to achieve production optimization in real time. Aspen Unified helps operations to better achieve the goals of the refinery, including safety and environmental targets, as well as financial and production KPIs. Aspen Unified is the first step in realizing the vision for the Self-Optimizing Plant. 

 

AspenTech defines the Self-Optimizing Plant as a facility that can automatically respond to changing operating conditions. AspenTech is creating industrial applications that can bridge functional silos and adapt to maintain the high levels of efficiency semi-autonomously. A refinery (or refineries in the case of Aspen Unified PIMS with Multisite option that implements Aspen Unified to align planning and scheduling and with closed-loop automation systems such as advanced process control (APC) and dynamic optimization, can begin to drive higher efficiency from its operations. They will become more capable, more agile, more flexible, safer and more profitable, under all market conditions.

 

“With a single environment now serving both planners and schedulers, Aspen Unified connects silos and increases visibility to improve decision making. Designed to be deployable in the cloud this solution offers much greater scalability with plant wide benefits,” said David Arbeitel, Senior Vice President, Product Management for Aspen Technology. “Bringing planning, scheduling and operations closer together allows accelerated and more consistent model building. This ensures production plans are more accurate and can be successfully executed.”

 

According to Peter Reynolds, Senior Analyst, ARC Advisory Group, “The Aspen Unified solution with updated software and support for consistent data models could help industrial companies simplify workflows. By improving collaboration and breaking down silos between planning, scheduling and operations, companies have the potential to create higher-value work processes and improve margins.” 

 

The Aspen Unified solution includes Aspen Unified PIMS with Multisite option, Aspen Unified Scheduling, Aspen Unified GDOT Builder and Aspen GDOT.