Materials
The term ‘materials’ as used in SuperPro Designer covers all substances that appear anywhere and for any purpose in the process. There are two types of substances that can be introduced (registered) in a process: pure components and stock mixtures (or mixtures for short). To register a new pure component please choose } } from the main menu of the application. To register a new mixture please chose } } . For details on how to register new components and mixtures, see Pure Component Registration and Stock Mixture Registration. Materials become available to operations by means of:
a) Streams (attached to the input port of the procedure),
b) Equipment contents (initialized at the beginning of a batch), or
c) User selection on the i/o simulation dialog of an operation
An example of case (c) above is when selecting a specific cleaning agent for a CIP operation or a sweeping agent as part of a gas sweep operation. Note that in this case, the selected material becomes available to the operation but does not appear on a procedure input stream.
Material that becomes available to an operation though its i/o simulation dialog may either join the rest of the material already present in the equipment contents (e.g. pressurize operation) or leave the equipment through one of the procedure’s output streams (e.g. gas sweep operation’s emission stream) or leave the equipment without the presence of a stream (e.g. CIP operation’s wash/waste stream). There is even the rare case of the sampling operation that allows a (small) amount of material already present in the (liquid) equipment contents to leave the process without a stream. In summary, materials leave the process by means of:
a) Streams (attached to output streams of the procedure)
b) Equipment contents (or equipment’s local receptacle), or
c) User’s choice on operation’s dialog (e.g. sampling and CIP operation) and without being present on an output stream.
Entering Material Consumption Classification
Regardless of how material makes itself available to the process for consumption (input stream, equipment contents or i/o simulation dialog choice), SuperPro Designer distinguishes the following five categories as possible consumption origins (aka consumption classification):
1. Raw Material
2. Cleaning Agent
3. Heat Transfer Agent
4. As part of a Revenue Stream
5. As part of an Unclassified Stream
If the material enters the process via an input stream, then its consumption classification follows the stream’s classification. Typically an input stream will be automatically classified as ‘Raw Material’ and therefore all consumption of material carried by the stream will also be tallied under the ‘Raw Material’ origin. If a user changes the classification of an input stream to ‘Cleaning Agent’, ‘Revenue’ or ‘Unclassified’, then any material carried on that input stream will be tallied under the corresponding category. Material that participates in the process as part of the initial contents of equipment, it is always assumed as ‘Raw Material’ but its cost may or may not be taken into account (as part of the operating cost). Finally, material that enters the process without a stream, is automatically classified based on its intended use and cannot be changed by the user. For the cases of pressurize and gas sweep, the material is classified as ‘Raw Material’; the case of CIP operation, the material is classified as ‘Cleaning Agent’.
A word needs to be mentioned here for the ‘Heat Transfer Agent’ category. If the user has chosen to associate a specific material to any of the heat transfer agents registered in the process (see Heat Transfer Agents), then any time that heat transfer agent is employed by an operation, the equivalent amount of material (as dictated by the agent’s definition) is assumed that is ‘consumed’ as ‘Heat Transfer Agent’ material. Please note that this is not an accurate representation as this material is presumed to be needed at the time that the heat transfer agent is generated by the utility service system, not when it is consumed. If users are using this feature, they are advised to ignore the ‘Heat Transfer Agent’ as origin from the consumption charts. Of course the consumption of heat transfer agent related material will add to the operating cost of the process.
Materials’ Purchase / Selling Price
Material’s purchase (or selling) price is a property that comes along with the set of all properties when the pure component or stock mixture is first registered from a database. Note that the price is set to match the value kept in the database at the time of registration and it is not automatically adjusted when the value is changed in the ‘SuperPro (User)’ database. Please note that materials registered from DIPPR or PPDS do not have such properties, so some arbitrary default values (usually 0.0) will be provided. You can view those prices for a pure component from the Pure Component: Economic Properties tab (of their Pure Component Properties dialog) or for a Stock Mixture from theStock Mixture: Economics tab (from their Stock Mixture Properties dialog). As prices of materials tend to fluctuate in time, if your company regularly updates values in the ‘SuperPro (User)’ db, you may decide to bring all prices in your SuperPro Designer model up-to-date. This can be easily done by invoking the Update Resource Prices from SuperPro (User) DB Dialog (select } from the main menu of the application).
Exiting Material Output Classification
Since most exiting material will leave the process on an output stream, the output classification follows that of the output stream. Therefore we consider the following seven categories:
1. Revenue
2. Credit
3. Emission
4. Aqueous Waste
5. Organic Waste
6. Solid Waste
7. Unclassified
For the rare exception of material exiting the process without a stream the designation is provided directly on the i/o simulation dialog of the corresponding operation (sampling or CIP). If no specification is provided, then ‘Unclassified’ will be assumed.
Finally, material can leave the process as either final contents of equipment (not removed by the end of the batch) or left in the local receptacle (if the automatic emptying of contents feature has been activated, see Local Receptacle & Automatic Emptying of Contents). Material left in vessels will be assumed as ‘Unclassified’ (and cannot be changed by the user), whereas material left in a receptacle is tagged as ‘Unclassified’ but can be given a user-chosen classification form the dialog that activates the automatic emptying of equipment before reuse (click } } from the procedure’s command menu to display the Empty Contents Before Reuse Dialog).
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Please note that even if he automatic emptying feature for an equipment resource is activated, the final contents of equipment (as left by the last procedure using the equipment) will not be removed to the local receptacle. If it is imperative that the leftover material be treated as waste (and perhaps associate some waste treatment cost to it) then, the user must make sure that the final contents are removed with a transfer out operation, and the associated output stream be tagged as appropriate waste with an appropriate waste treatment cost.
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Material Rates and Timing
For every material that enters (or exits) the process the application associates an event (operation) that is responsible for the transfer. The rate of material transfer is either set (or calculated) directly from the associated operation (e.g. the charge rate or CIP cleaning rate) or the total amount is set (or calculated) by the operation and then a rate is calculate by dividing the total amount with the process time of the operation. In other words, we always assume that the material flows in (or out) evenly during the process time of an operation.
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Material that is found at the beginning of the batch as equipment contents it is not considered as ‘entering’ the process and therefore it is not associated with any operation. Similarly, material found at the end of the process as final equipment contents it is not considered as ‘exiting’ the process and it is similarly not associated with any operation. Neither amount will appear on the material consumption or production charts.
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There are two special cases that need to be mentioned. When material enters a procedure via the auto-initialize feature (see Default Input Ports & Auto-Initialization), then the material’s rate and timing will be associated with the first operation in the procedure’s queue, even though, clearly that operation may not be responsible for bringing the material into the procedure. Similarly, when material leaves the a unit procedure via the auto-removal feature (see Default Output Port & Auto-Removal) then its timing will be associated with the operation last in the queue. For material removed from equipment before reuse via the auto-emptying feature (and placed to the local receptacle, see Local Receptacle & Automatic Emptying of Contents) once again, the last operation in the procedure’s queue will be used. If the timing for the above material transfers is of importance, then the user is urged to employ a transfer in (or charge) and/or a transfer out in order to better capture the timing of the material transfer.
Detailed charts for material entering or exiting a process can be generated for any material present (registered) in the process (see } } or, } } under the main menu of the application).
Material Inventory
Besides keeping track of material consumption, it is possible to provide the application with enough information about the replenishing process (for a given material) so that it can present you with a detailed material inventory chart. For example, if you specify the holding capacity of the storage for that material as well as the rates and frequency of supply, then the application can provide you with a inventory chart for the entire supply, demand and accumulation information. Similarly for material leaving the process, besides viewing material output charts, users can provide the application with storage capacity and removal rate and frequency information and the application will present a detailed inventory chart for a given material.The inventory information for entering materials can be accessed from the } } interface. Select the material and click on the View/Edit button (
) (or double-click the material’s row) and you will be presented with the Entering or Exiting Material Properties Dialog with information regarding the (entering) material as resource. The ‘Inventory Data’ tab allows you to view and edit inventory information (on the supply side) for this material. The same information for the material as a resource exiting the process, can be viewed from the } } interface. The inventory charts can be accessed from the } } or, } } under the main menu of the application.
Material Storage Units
Material consumption (or output) charts and material inventory charts deal with the consumption or production of a given material as it enters or exits everywhere in the process. Even though the classification of the material can be narrowed down (e.g. track only ‘Raw Material’ entering the process, or track only ‘Aqueous Waste’ leaving the process) these charts cannot be customized to localize the source for the consumption or production of material. For users who want to refine the tracing of material consumption and/or production based on its consuming (or producing) location in the process, SuperPro Designer offers as solution the concept of ‘Storage Units’. You can define a supply storage unit and hook it up to service only certain parts of a process where, say, WFI is used. Later, you can ask to see consumption and/or inventory charts for that storage unit alone, and therefore be able to track the use of WFI for only those points of consumption that you chose. For more details on how to introduce storage units and use them in your process, see Material Storage Units.