Europe´s process industry is in change. Production costs are rising as a result of increasing energy prices; at the same time, the fuels applied today are causing greenhouse gas emissions which threaten the world climate. A challenging economic environment caused by competitors from ambitious threshold countries increases, in addition, the competitive pressure. Productivity improvements, more efficient energy application, and sustainable production methods have become more urgent than ever.

Inosim, a medium-sized German enterprise develops sophisticated software for process simulation. Very early, Directing Manager Peter Balling had recognized a high potential for the application of simulation tools in European process industries: Compared to other industrial branches, there had been a technological deficit here for a long time.

In between, this gap has been closed. With Inosim's event-oriented simulation solutions, continuous and Batch processes as well as their combinations can be emulated on the base of adaptable simulation models. Application examples are plant design, optimization of existing plants, or preventive maintenance management. The development of the advanced simulation tools goes hand in hand with process-technical research projects and cooperation with industry and science, in particular with the chair for systems engineering and process technology at TU Dortmund University.

A current example of the application of Inosim software in process industries is BASF. The chemical company has been applying material flow simulations for many years in order to emulate and control production processes. In the future, BASF will apply Inosim simulation solutions worldwide. The Ludwigshafen engineers are mostly convinced of the tool´s great flexibility and its high adaptability for specific operational purposes. Dr Christian Klewer, responsible project manager at BASF, says: „We are convinced of the tool´s high flexibility and of the good cooperation concerning the specific adaptation of the software for our interests."