Achieving Design Capacity

摘要

Companies spend considerable effort in analyzing business development opportunities. A decision to fund a project is based on the economics of the project's design capacity. Design capacity (throughput/flow rate) can range from flow rate for refining/petrochemical industry to discrete component manufacturing rates. Often, there is gap between the design capacity nameplate of an industrial facility and the actual recorded operation capacity of the completed facility. Operational data (production rate and operation notes) from the first year run of a project was obtained from multiple oil refining process units and compared to their design capacity. Key issues from operation logs for startup, maintenance, and operations, were studied to determine affects on design capacity. Cost and schedule metrics provide a quantitative basis to assist project teams during project assessment of economics and quantifying the lost profit opportunity (LPO) when design capacity is not achieved. This article presents a methodology of design capacity assessment, the factors having the largest influence in achieving design capacity, and the resulting effect on project economics. This article was first presented as PM.804 at the 2012 AACE Annual Meeting in San Antonio.