aspenONE ™ Advanced Process Control V2006 offers simplification of AspenTech’s APC product portfolio in new packaged offerings as well as new capabilities in individual products. These improvements are largely based on customer feedback, including input from the Advanced Control and Optimization (AC&O) User Group.

New features within Aspen DMCplus include the following:

• Model Workflow Improvements - User interface improvements help manage interpolated slices, assembled models, typical moves, and curve operations.
• Improved Identification - The subspace identification engine has substantial speed improvements, and the new CV-grouping feature automatically groups related CVs in sub cases, allowing larger cases with better results.
• Application Configuration Enhancements - Configuration improvements to the online controller allows for better engineer control of the application.
• Operator Interface Enhancements - The “Plots View” window now supports multiple plots (up to a 4x4 grid) and allows retention of favorite plot configurations.

Specific improvements within Aspen Apollo include:

• Customizable User Interfaces - New interfaces provided with the product eliminate the need to manually create an interface through the DCS, greatly improving product ease-of-use.
• Improved Engineering Workflow - Enhanced workflow greatly simplifies the process of building a controller, making implementation faster and less error-prone.
• Additional useful new features include time constant scheduling, gain scheduling, input/output transforms and custom model support.

These are just some of the improvements available today with V2006. To learn more about the V2006 release and order your upgrade copy, visit our Customer Support website.

AspenTech’s APC solutions enable customers to capture maximum value from their APC applications and sustain this value throughout the lifecycle of the application. One of these solutions is Aspen Watch for advanced monitoring, diagnosis and performance improvement.

In the recent aspenONE V2006, AspenTech made significant enhancements to Aspen Watch based on valuable customer feedback combined with state-of-the art new technology. Through an intuitive web interface, the new version provides advanced monitoring, drill-down troubleshooting and an infrastructure that enables customers to build best practices for APC maintenance. Specific updates enable users to:

• Define application-specific KPIs
• View high-level KPI information via carpet plots and drill-down to view details
• Compare KPIs against performance baseline and benchmarking
• Create configurable reports with trend plot and drill-down troubleshooting to PID level
• Distribute reports via email or through the web
• Support maintenance collaboration through advanced event and messaging systems

AspenTech also released a new Aspen Watch component with V2006, Aspen SmartAudit. Aspen SmartAudit reads and evaluates model files for structural problems. If near-collinear structural problems are discovered, then the gains can be corrected in an optimal way to improve online controller performance.

These new and updated tools combined with AspenTech's professional services and recommended best practices for APC maintenance will enable the sustained value of APC applications, providing a solid infrastructure for maintaining best practices and proactive maintenance guidelines.

See the Events section of this newsletter for links to upcoming and recorded Aspen Sustained Value seminars and webinars.

Every three months, AspenTech invites customers to participate in a Voice of the Customer Survey to provide feedback on products, customer support & training, professional services, and other areas of the company. In the most recent survey, customers were also polled about their most important business goals in various areas.

AspenTech’s APC customers worldwide responded to this survey and results show that their top goals for APC in the next six months are:

The responses varied between APC energy and APC chemicals customers. The top goal for energy users was overwhelmingly improving production yields, while chemicals users identified improving production throughput as the top goal.

What’s the most important APC business goal at your organization in the next six months? Give your input in this single question online survey. We’ll discuss the responses in the next issue of the newsletter.

Polymer manufacturers typically run their processes through a fixed production cycle during transitions between grades. This is in an attempt to balance their inventories while minimizing the production of off-spec product.

PetroChina is one of the largest companies in China and is a major producer of polyolefins in that region. By implementing aspenONE Advanced Process Control for Polymers solution, PetroChina dramatically improved their grade transition agility and efficiency. The transitions performed on this process sometimes involve reactor configuration changes (parallel to series operation), which is one of the most challenging procedures to automate and optimize in the industry.

The benefits were US$640,000/year on this 80,000 t/year process, delivering a positive return on investment in less than 12 months. Read the complete article.

Significant financial and operational benefits have been realized by Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Company (SPC) by using the aspenONE Advanced Process Control for Polymers solution. The project was presented at the 2006 World Polypropylene Congress in Zurich. Specific benefits achieved include:

• Increased production capacity by 3.4%
• Decreased reactor variability by an average of 70%
• Reduced transition times by an average of 50%

Sinopec is among China’s largest integrated energy and chemical companies, and has developed a reputation for successfully utilizing the latest process optimization technologies. The company has deployed numerous AspenTech engineering, plant operations and supply chain management solutions in many of its core businesses across China. Read the full press release.

Sinopec will share further details of this exciting project in an upcoming web seminar. See the Events section of this newsletter for the date and time.

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