Virtual plant, new paradigm for future production management

Operator is a key player in plant operation. However, still operator working environment is limited to traditional interfaces and monitoring systems, which include actual plant, sensors, alarms, and other process and operation condition monitoring systems. Providing operator with virtual environment that integrates plant and process conditions in actual and virtual modes will support operator decisions in normal and abnormal situations. This research work discusses current limitations and proposes future generation virtual plant environment that enables operator to comprehend current plant and process condition and predict future, states for safe and optimum operation. To achieve such target, process modeling is proposed to analyze operator activities in view of process design and operation practices.