Patent ID: 6993403

Claim:
A method of monitoring performance of a facility having at least one plant producing at least one product and consuming at least one commodity in at least one unit operation, said method comprising: periodically monitoring current values including a rate of usage of the at least one commodity, a production rate of the at least one product and a unit production cost computed by dividing at least a cost value referable to the rate of usage of at least one of the at least one commodity by the production rate of the at least one product; computing and storing running averages over a predetermined time interval of the rate of usage of the at least one commodity and the unit production cost; determining base values related to steady state operation of the facility for the each of the running averages; periodically computing performance factors that include a commodity performance factor related to the usage of the at least one commodity and a production efficiency performance factor related to the unit production cost by mathematical functions utilizing the running averages and the base values and defined such that as the usage of the at least one commodity increases, the commodity performance factor and the production efficiency performance factor decrease and as product recovery increases, the production efficiency performance factor increases; computing an overall performance factor by weighting the performance factors in at least approximate proportions to cost contribution of each of the performance factors to the production of the at least one product to produce weighted performance factors and adding the weighted performance factors; and displaying the overall performance factor to a user monitoring the performance of the facility.