Taking a Broader Approach to Process Optimization

Sophisticated mathematical approaches to process optimization, in which some objective function is maximized or minimized subject to chosen constraints, are widely published in the literature. We suggest that such optimization problems are often restricted to an unnecessarily narrow domain and that a broader perspective may reap greater rewards.

Questions as to just what should be maximized or minimized, or what are the real constraints as opposed to only those that are immediately apparent, are …