Integrating process operations and finances for the optimal design of chemical supply chains

The tight profit margins under which the Chemical Process Industry (CPI) operates are forcing companies to pay more and more attention to the design and operation of their Supply Chains (SC). Traditional approaches available in the Process Systems Engineering (PSE) literature to address the design and operation of chemical SC focus on the process operations side and neglect the financial part of the problem. This work deals with the design and retrofit of chemical SC and proposes a novel framework that consists in the inclusion of financial considerations at the strategic decision-making level. Within this framework, decisions that have a long-lasting effect on the firm are assessed through integrated models which are capable of holistically optimising the combined effects of process operations and finances. The main advantages of the proposed holistic approach are highlighted through a case study, in which the integrated approach is compared with the traditional myopic method that pursues a fairly simple performance indicator as objective and neglect the financial variables and constraints of the problem. The integrated solution not only ensures the feasibility of the strategic decisions from the financial viewpoint but also leads to superior performance in terms of value measures.