PITA Fiscal Year 2011 Projects
Computational Models and Algorithms for Enterprise-wide Optimization of Process
Industries
Lead University: Carnegie Mellon University
PI: Ignacio E. Grossmann, Department of Chemical Engineering
Co-PI: Lorenz T. Biegler, Department of Chemical Engineering
PA Industry: Invivomon
The U.S. chemical process industry exported 43% of all chemicals manufactured in 2009, representing
12% of all manufactured goods exported. The industry exported $153.4 billion leading to a $2.28 billion
surplus. Excluding pharmaceuticals, the trade surplus was $20.3 billion, one of the few industry segments
with a positive contribution to the nation's balance of payments. Chemicals are Pennsylvania's leading
export industry since nearly 16 percent of the state’s exports come from this sector.The industry employs
in the U.S. 803,000 people in highly-skilled, high-paying jobs. Due to the increasing pressure for
remaining competitive in the global marketplace, Enterprise-wide optimization (EWO) has become a
major goal in this industry as it involves optimizing operations of supply, manufacturing and distribution
activities to reduce costs and inventories.
The goal of this proposal to continue in July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012 the successful research work for
developing a comprehensive set of computational capabilities for EWO problems. The work is performed
by a multidisciplinary team from two institutions of Pennsylvania (Carnegie Mellon, Lehigh), composed of
chemical and industrial engineers, and operations researchers, working in coordination with ICES at
Carnegie Mellon and ATLSS at Lehigh. We are developing novel models, algorithms, decomposition
methods, and computational techniques in order to provide a new generation of analytical IT tools to an
expanding number of companies. The project involves close collaborations with Pennsylvania companies,
Air Products and Chemicals, Dow Chemical (Rohm and Haas), Nova Chemicals and PPG, and
companies with operations in Pennsylvania, ABB, ExxonMobil, Praxair, Total and Unilever. The work
involves projects that range from scheduling to planning to modeling and evaluation of polymer products.
We meet twice per year, conduct a seminar series that is broadcast to the companies, and publish our
results in the webpage http://egon.cheme.cmu.edu/ewocp/. We describe plans of our work for the next
year.