LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)– At the 2017 Advanced Process Modelling (APM) Forum in London this week, companies from across the process industries presented on topics ranging from accelerating development of the next generation of drugs to identifying millions of dollars per annum in operational savings.

Organised and hosted by Process Systems Enterprise (PSE), providers of the gPROMS APM platform, the two-day conference is a key annual event for process industry organisations focused on creating sustainable value through the application of high-accuracy predictive process modelling and optimisation.

Keynote speaker Jan van Schijndel of VS Strategic Consulting, formerly head of GTL development at Shell, outlined a vision for Operational Excellence capable of bringing $40-80m per annum improvements in process economics for large-scale petrochemical plants. Brian Henry, Vice President for Drug Product Design at Pfizer, described how digital design techniques that draw on technologies developed and proven in other areas are changing the way the industry develops and manufactures drugs, based on a fundamental understanding of process and product performance.

In the formulated products sessions, aimed at the pharmaceuticals, food & beverage and consumer goods sectors, presentations from GSK, Roche, AstraZeneca, Dr Reddy’s, Eli Lilly, Procter & Gamble, Danone and FrieslandCampina described the application of advanced mechanistic modelling in improving drug product manufacture, increasing food product throughput and reducing energy costs and CO ₂ footprint. New technologies such as global system analysis are now allowing manufacturers to systematically explore the decision space to an unprecedented degree. This accelerates innovation and significantly decreases time-to-market for new formulations. It also reduces process uncertainty, resulting in more robust processes.

Also at the Forum, PSE and Dutch food research organisation NIZO announced the formation of a Centre of Excellence for Food Product & Process Modelling, and PSE provided a preview of the all-new gPROMS FormulatedProducts environment for integrated design and optimisation of formulated products and their manufacturing processes, scheduled for release in May.

In the chemicals, petrochemicals and energy & environment sessions, where presenters included Shell, Sabic, SCG Chemicals, DSM, Primetals and Velocys, the focus was again on the application of large-scale optimisation techniques to reduce operating costs or enhance product values to the tune of millions or tens of millions of dollars per year. The Oil & Gas session similarly focused on new multi-site and integrated asset optimisation approaches for maximising asset utilisation.

Conference organiser Mark Matzopoulos, PSE Marketing Director, said “a key takeaway of the conference is that the maturing of advanced process and materials modelling techniques and tools is making it increasingly easy for process organisations – whether pharma, food manufacture or petrochemicals – to deal with systems of enormous complexity. The increased understanding enables them to make better-informed decisions faster, resulting in competitive advantage and accelerated innovation”.

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Contacts

Process Systems Enterprise
Kate Burness
+44-20-8563-0888
k.burness@psenterprise.com
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