Process Explorer

Building a process engages several objects (elements) either directly or indirectly: main equipment resources, auxiliary equipment (CIP skids, transfer lines, etc.), materials (pure components and stock mixtures, heat transfer agents, etc.). For each type of those objects, the application has a dedicated interface that lists all members and allows the editing of their properties. For example, you can visit the Pure Component Registration Dialog and see a list of all the pure components currently engaged in a process. Similarly, you can see all the heat transfer agents involved in the entire process by selecting View } Overview Navigator and viewing the List of Heat Transfer Agents Currently in Use. All such interfaces exist but they are spread around under different menus. Starting with version 8.0, we have introduced the Process Explorer interface that makes viewing and accessing all those elements much easier.

The process explorer interface.

If you click on the Toggle Process Explorer button () of the main toolbar (or select View } Process Explorer from the main menu), a multi-tabbed toolbar will appear (see area circled in red in The process explorer interface. ). You may also show or hide this toolbar by right-clicking over any of the visible toolbars, in which case a list of all available toolbars will appear:

Toolbar Show/Hide Menu.

You may then select Process Explorer to show (or hide) the process explorer toolbar.

This toolbar can be docked vertically either to the far right (default) or the far-left of the workspace, or it can be left floating (double-click on the title bar of the process explorer to turn the “floating” behavior on or off).

Notice that the toolbar has multiple tabs (shown at the bottom of the circled area in The overview navigator. above). Selecting each tab will present a catalog of those items if any of them is included in the process. You can customize the number of tabs that you wish to appear here by right-clicking over the tab area to show/hide a particular tab. The Process Explorer tabs and their contents include:

Matl	All pure components and stock mixtures registered currently in the process. For each ingredient its purchase price is directly displayed as well as its source (database or local definition).
Util	All registered utilities: Heating Agents, Cooling Agents and Power Types.
MainEq	Main Equipment Resources: The equipment are grouped by category (Centrifuges, Chrom. Columns, Dryers, Filters, Reactors & Fermentors, Storage, etc.). For each entry, we display its size (and units) and the number of equipment units Nu (operating simultaneously), the number of staggered sets, Ns and the number of backup (standby) units, Nb
AuxEq	All auxiliary equipment resources. Currently the application supports only CIP skids and SIP panels.
Labor	All labor types involved in the operations contained in the process. For each labor type, we display the adjusted basic labor rate and the lumped rate.
Consbl	All consumables involved in all equipment resources that require them are listed in this tab. They are grouped by their type (membranes, resins, etc.). For each item, its price is also directly displayed.
SUs	Supply and receiving storage units. For each such unit, we display (as part of its name in parenthesis) either the name of the supplied material (for supply units) or the type of the waste (in case of receiving units); we also display the purchase (for supply units) or waste treatment (for receiving units) price.
Doc	All documentation embedded within the project model. This could include text boxes that have been added to the flowsheet, comments related to specific flowsheet branches or sections, or comments related to unit procedures, operations, or equipment units (specified by the user through Description or Comments tabs). The upper pane of the Doc tab displays the location of each documentation item (grouped by type). The lower pane of the Doc tab displays the contents of a given item after it has been selected in the upper pane.