Process Industries 2: Digitalization, a New Key Driver for Industrial Management

From the Introduction:
This book, a result of knowledge exchange between the academic and industrial
worlds, aims to introduce process industries to students, teachers, researchers,
professionals, decision-makers, and, in general, the general public, at a time when
they are affected by the digital revolution that accompanies the ongoing energy and
environmental transitions.
These industries aim to transform and/or separate matter by chemical, physical or biological means. They cover huge and often complex fields such as chemistry, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, metallurgy, food industry, biotechnology, environmental and energy industries, among others. Their economic and societal importance is considerable. The companies that depend on it create value through their products from industrial facilities (workshops, factories) that implement specific technologies and processes. The science enabling this implementation is called “chemical engineering” (génie des procédés in French). The French name is to be credited to the late Professor Jacques Villermaux of the École nationale supérieure des industries chimiques (ENSIC, the French National School of Chemical Industries) in Nancy, who noted that all the knowledge and techniques of chemical engineering could be perfectly applied, beyond the chemical and petroleum industries, to all process industries. This book is an invitation to discover the operational modes and technical and industrial management of these industries. It attempts to succinctly answer the following questions: – What is a company? – What are its foundations and how is it organized? – How does it respond to what is today known as CSR (corporate social responsibility)? – How does it cooperate with its stakeholders (clients, stockholders, employees, administration, etc.) when the concept of capitalism with a human face is born which, in addition to remunerating its shareholders, wants to display its contribution to the common good? – How does it design its commercial products based on the results of its research? – How does it build and manage its plants and factories to manufacture and distribute its products, after having assessed their impact on the environment through an eco-design analysis based on LCA (Life cycle Assessment)? – What are the scientific bases and the “technological elements” that the chemical engineer, at the heart of the process, will use to design and operate the manufacturing facility?..