Exporting Process Data
SuperPro Designer allows you to export various process data (resource consumption/inventory, scheduling information, etc.) in various ways:
● Export Process Scheduling Data to MS-Excel
● Export Resource Consumption Data to MS-Excel
2. Exporting Scheduling & Resource Consumption Data to MS-Project
1. Exporting Scheduling & Resource Consumption Data to SchedulePro
Export Process Scheduling Data to MS-Excel
If you need to export all the data associated with the scheduling of all operations in your process (start time shift, process time, turnaround time, etc.) the application allows you to create an “xls” (Excel® formatted) file that contains all this information. Here is how you can generate that file:
3. Bring up the gantt chart for operations (see The Operations Gantt Chart (OGC)) or for equipment (see The Equipment Gantt Chart (EGC)) or the equipment occupancy chart (see The Equipment Occupancy Chart (EOC)).
To bring up the operations gantt chart, select from the main menu of the application; to bring up the equipment gantt chart select from the main menu of the application; to bring up the equipment occupancy chart, select .
● Select From the chart’s command (context) menu, select ®. The context menu for the chart appears when you right-click over an unoccupied area of the chart. The file selection dialog will come up. Select a location (folder) and a file name where you wish to have the data saved. By convention, MS-Excel® files have an ‘xls’ extension. The file need not already exist. In fact, if the program discovers that a previous file exist with the same name and in the same location on your hard disk, it will ask for your permission to overwrite it.
● Open the file from MS-Excel®
Start MS-Excel®, and select . Locate the file that you specified in step (2) above. Some minor column formatting may be necessary for all the values to appear properly.
Export Resource Consumption Data to MS-Excel
The most common motivation for exporting resource consumption data to MS-Excel is when a user needs to combine consumption information (for the same resource) from different recipes. Since a SuperPro Designer recipe typically only focuses on one product at a time but at the same time, several recipes may be forced to share common resources in the same production site (e.g. heat transfer agents, material supplies, labor, etc.) it may be vital to combine the consumption from several recipes (with overlapping execution times) to make sure that any rate supply or cumulative supply limit are not violated. For example, a steam distribution system may have a built-in limitation (upper limit) as to how much steam can be distributed at a given time (in kg/h or lb/s). Storage limitations may place an upper limit as to how much a given buffer can be consumed in the span of 12 hours (between replenishing runs). SuperPro Designer makes it easy to check against such resource constraints when a single process is assumed to be running. However, when consumption is supposed to be combined from different recipes (running at overlapping times) you must combine the consumption data from each recipe. Bringing the data from each recipe into an Excel® file and later combining the numbers is a relatively easy way to accomplish this task.
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When combining the batch execution data from multiple recipes (assuming multiple batches from each recipe) remember that SuperPro Designer assumes that each batch (of the same recipe) repeats itself in an identical fashion only with a time shift from the one before it (the recipe’s cycle time). In reality, due to practical constraints, this may not be the case. Some follow up batches may be late to start, or some operations in a later batch may not start in exactly the same time shift from the batch start. For better flexibility in representing batches and understanding resource constraints as they originate from multiple batch executions from the same or multiple recipes in the same site, it is strongly recommended to export the data into SchedulePro (see Exporting Scheduling & Resource Consumption Data to SchedulePro) and perform the resource debottlenecking analysis there.
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1. Bring up the resource consumption or inventory chart for the desired resource (material, heat transfer agent, labor, power)
To generate the resource consumption / inventory chart, select the appropriate entry in the or or or menu from the application’s main menu.
3. Select ®.
From the chart’s command (context) menu select ®. The context menu for the chart appears when you right-click over an unoccupied area of the chart. The file selection dialog will come up. Select a location (folder) and a file name where you wish to have the data saved. By convention, MS-Excel® files have an ‘xls’ extension. The file need not already exist. In fact, if the program discovers that a previous file exist with the same name and in the same location on your hard disk, it will ask for your permission to overwrite it.
2. Open the file from MS-Excel®
Start MS-Excel®, and select . Locate the file that you specified in step (2) above. Some minor column formatting may be necessary for all the values to appear properly.
Exporting Scheduling & Resource Consumption Data to MS-Project
If you are accustomed to using MS-Project® for your scheduling representations (especially if you need to add real-calendar-based scheduling capabilities to batch processes developed by SuperPro Designer) you will appreciate SuperPro Designer’s MS-Project® Export facility. This facility exports to an XML format that can be directly imported by MS-Project®, all the operation scheduling and resource consumption data from a recipe. Furthermore, from MS-Project®, you can import (in the same project) data from different recipes so that they can be combined and analyzed in order to identify potential bottlenecks.
Exporting scheduling and resource data through MS-Project® offers several advantages over MS-Excel®:
Scheduling links among operations (e.g. start-to-start, start-to-finish, etc.) are retained in MS Project®
Multiple batch export is supported
Staggered equipment operation is supported
Equipment, labor, power and material resources are automatically defined in MS Project®
Equipment utilization, power consumption and material and heat transfer agent utilization levels are also included in the export file.
About the Export Process
SuperPro Designer now communicates its data to MS-Project® by exporting it to an XML file formatted specifcally for MS-Project®.
Operations are exported as fixed duration tasks. Procedures and sections are exported as summary tasks. Equipment and labor are exported as work-resources. All other resources are treated as material resources.
Select the ®command (from main menu) or from the operations gantt chart interface by selecting ® from the menu or by selecting ® from the chart’s command (context) menu. The following dialog (The ‘Export to MS-Project® dialog.) will appear:
The ‘Export to MS-Project® dialog.
Select the information that you wish to export and provide a name for the recipe
From this interface you can select the file name of the exported xml file. Also it allows you to customize the content of the data being exported as well as give them a name (project name, or recipe name) that will be listed in MS-Project®. You can set the number of batches for which data is to be exported as well as whether you wish to include resource consumption data (i.e. for labor, electrical power, heat transfer agent and/or raw materials). Finally, you must specify a date/time to be kept as the calendar start time of the exported project. For details, see Export to MS-Project Options Dialog. When you have made all your selections click on OK.
Open the xml file from MS-Project®
Launch MS-Project and select from the main menu. Change the file type to be ‘XML Format (*.xml)’ and choose the xml file from the list. From the import dialog that will appear you can either import the xml file as new project, append to the active project or merge the data into the active project. After you have selected the way you want to import the data click on OK to display the project data in the gantt chart.
Exporting Scheduling & Resource Consumption Data to SchedulePro
For users who need to combine scheduling and resource consumption data from several recipes as they all may execute in the same facility, or for those users who may still deal with a single recipe but when planning a campaign of multiple batches they would like to have a more refined control over the scheduling of each batch (and each operation in a batch), using SchedulePro (the companion software to SuperPro Designer in Intelligen’s suite) is strongly preferred over MS-Project®. SchedulePro’s utilities are much more tuned to engineers in process modeling and operations and make it much easier to analyze and debottleneck multi-product (and/or multi-batch) facilities.
Select the command from main menu of the application. The following dialog (The ‘Export to SchedulePro ’s Recipe DB’ dialog.) will appear.
The ‘Export to SchedulePro ’s Recipe DB’ dialog.
Fill in the data of the Exporting Recipe to SchedulePros Recipe DB Dialog.
You need to specify a name for the recipe and specify a site to be used as the assumed site for all sections that do not have an allocated site already. Even though not required, it is strongly recommended that you add a short description for the recipe and provide several appropriately selected keywords to be associated with this recipe so that it can be easily retrieved later if needed. come up. The Password For DB Access Dialog may precede the exporting dialog if the ‘Always Show Password Dialog’ option has been set in the Application Settings Dialog: Miscellaneous tab in the Database Access section.
Click on OK to start the exporting process.
This may take several seconds or minutes depending on the size of your recipe. Sometimes, after click on OK, you may get the following message: “You already have a recipe with that name in the database. Update it?”. This message will come up if the there are already data recorded under the recipe name that you provided.
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If the command is not available (grαyed out) make sure you have SchedulePro currently installed on your PC. If not, please install SchedulePro first and then restart the process of exporting the data from SuperPro Designer to SchedulePro’s Recipe DB. The actual database file behind the database source is “SP RecipeDBv6.mdb”. Make sure that this file exists under the installation path for SchedulePro.
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