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technoeconomic analysis

Hi everyone-

Has anyone ever addressed questions in using JMP to help with technoeconomic evaluations? I have a customer wanting to know how JMP can help.

In the past, I have built Excel models for multi-step chemical syntheses where the input costs, yields, purities, cycle times, etc. were tied together and then would run an in silico DOE by varying the assumptions on those factors. I used this to determine where to spend R&D budget to optimize the process and make sure the step we focused on would have the most impact on overall cost.

I think this can be expanded to a broader technoeconomic analysis by building a model (Excel, Aspen, or similar) and modeling IRR, break-even point, or whatever metric they find most useful. This would lead to a profiler that I think would be much more informative than a sensitivity analysis using a traditional tornado chart. Maybe even then carrying out Monte Carlo simulations on key factors to get a probability for achieving an acceptable range or results.

Anyone else have experience with this type of analysis or can recommend another approach?

Thanks,

-Scott

 

Re: technoeconomic analysis

Hi Scott,

I did a bit of this when I worked in the chemical industry. I built some cost models in Excel with various factors including production unit occupancy, cycle times etc. And then profiled this in JMP with the Excel addin. I added Monte Carlo simulation to give an estimate of the uncertainty in the final cost estimates, given uncertainty in the inputs.

I thought this was all very clever and that it would be incredibly useful.

My audience didn't much seem to care. I don't think they were ready for a distribution of cost estimates. They didn't much care which factors were most influential. They really just wanted best case / worst case.

I have shown similar examples to customers. Again, they don't much seem to care. I am not aware of anyone ever buying JMP to enable them to do this.

Hopefully your audience is more receptive. It seems like a great application for JMP.  But I would caution spending too much time on this. 

I hope that helps.

Phil

Re: technoeconomic analysis

Hi Phil-

Thanks for your thoughts on this. I did a quick literature search and found a few references that are doing the same thing as you suggest: create models in external software and then simulate and model outcome probabilities within JMP. This seems to be the right level of response to the customer for now.

-Scott

Re: technoeconomic analysis

Just my 2-cents, but before talking features and capabilities, what's the customer's motivation for asking the question? What is their pain point? More importantly, if the pain point requires additional licenses or another product (Pro), is there a budget to address the pain point? 

M

Re: technoeconomic analysis

Hi Scott, I didn't mean to "accept as solution" but I can't seem to undo this at the moment so I'll leave it be. 

I presume the customer has already looked at the simple example case for this in our help documentation? 

https://www.jmp.com/support/help/en/16.2/#page/jmp/example-of-simulating-general-formulas.shtml#ww511345

I personally find the search term "stochastic optimization" useful for finding this and the other monte-carlo simulation content in our Online help docs. Julian did a nice demo of this  a few years back:  https://youtu.be/rfR61lJ3mhk?t=2266

-Patrick