Role of Process Logistics Simulation Modeling in Delivering Capital Solutions

Abstract

For more than a decade, Hatch has used process and logistics models to assist Rio Tinto Fer etTitane (RTFT) with capacity planning, debottlenecking, and optimization to help ensure design capability,capital effectiveness, and operational efficiency of the integrated production chain. Process models areused to optimize the physics-based aspects of the system, such as mass and energy balances, flow rates,yields, and equipment specifications. Dynamic logistics models are used to optimize how the various plantareas work together to achieve the desired ends and deal with such things as plant scheduling andsynchronization strategies, sizing of buffers between processes, defining the required number of processand material handling units, and designing a plant layout that minimizes plant interferences andinefficienies. The combined use of process models and logistics models enables the overall plant to beoptimized from both a productivity and quality point of view, with each plant area working in harmonywith one another to achieve targeted capacities and efficiencies. This paper describes the many benefitsderived from such modeling efforts over the past 15 years for each of the major plant areas at RTFT:Beneficiation Plant, Smelter Plant, Steel Plant, UGS Plant, and Powder Plant (RTMP).