There are hundreds, possibly thousands of numbers (depending on the size of your process description) that are calculated after the simulation is performed (M&E balances) and the economic calculations are finished. The results cover a wide span of interests regarding the performance of the process: batch (or throughput) size, annual throughput, yields, material (or any other resource) consumption levels, scheduling constraints, economic viability, environmental impact assessment, just to name a few. It would be very difficult to search into all the process objects (procedures, operations, equipment, etc.) and collect all the pertinent numbers to get answers on typical questions that users may have regarding a process. There are many user interfaces that interactively present partial views of those results on the screen in the form of charts, tables, etc. but the scope of such views is limited:e.g. you can view the contents of a single equipment or the consumption chart for a selected material. SuperPro Designer comes to the help of the user by collecting all the relevant numbers and presenting them in the form of reports. There are several reports generated by the application, each focusing on a different group of issues. The reports are generated (upon request using appropriate menu calls) and saved in a temporary file just so that they can be presented to the user. The file format of the report can be chosen by the user (e.g. ‘pdf’, ‘rtf’, ‘html’, etc.) and its choice dictates the viewer application employed to present the report on the screen. Each time you request a report the previous version is deleted. If needed, you can request to have a given set of report(s) preserved in a location and not overwritten by the application the next time they are generated (see Create and Save Multiple Reports Dialog). The following reports are currently generated:
● MateriaLS & Stream Report (SR)
● Economic Evaluation Report (EER)
● Cash Flow Analysis Report (CFR)
● Throughput Analysis Report (THR)
Environmental Impact Report (EIR)
EPA-MACT Emissions Report (EPA)
Auxiliary Equipment Report (AUX)
The content of each report mentioned above is preset but users may include or exclude some of the sections or paragraphs if needed (see Report Options Dialog). Finally, there’s another report (Custom Excel Report) which is only generated in MS-Excel® native format, and whose contents are not focused on any particular group of issues but they can be chosen by the user from a list that covers all aspects of the results: stream flows, equipment contents, economic figures, scheduling data, consumption charts, etc. The Custom Excel Report can be used to quickly generate content that may be suited for users who want to see in a single file perhaps a collection of performance indicators for the process in an arrangement that the application does not currently support in the form of a standard report.