Plantwide Control of Fruit Concentrate Production

Mark van Dijk1,  Sander Dubbelman2,  Peter Bongers2
12727, 2


Abstract

Fruit concentrate is a key ingredient in many fruit based Unilever products. In order to achieve the best product quality at the highest processing capacity and with the least amount of energy consumption, proper control of the fruit concentrate production process is critical. Out of specification production of fruit concentrate at throughputs of 10 to 100 ton/hr of fresh fruit as a result of process fluctuations and fluctuations in the properties of the fresh fruit can be very costly. This is why an adequate control of continuous fruit concentration processes and the resulting products is of paramount importance. This paper presents the process control design for a fruit concentrate production process, which involves the development of a dynamic control model of the system, the design of a suitable control structure by using this model, the implementation of the control structure in the factory process control system and evaluation of the performance. A systematic procedure for control structure design for complete processing plants (plantwide control) is applied. This included defining the operational and economical objectives, degrees of freedom analysis and inventory and production rate control.