The Methods and Tools SIG is considering updating the parameter dimensionality property array to include an element that represents economic units to allow PMCs and PME to communicate economic information such as equipment costs, installed costs, operating costs, material costs.
Currently, economic information can be passed between the PME and PMC using a real-valued parameter that provides neither information that the value represents economic data nor the currency used. Adding an economic element to the Parameter dimensionality array would explicitly bring economics and costing into the domain of CAPE-OPEN. This capability would allow the PME to perform a cost analysis of a flowsheet with economic data provided by the unit operation PMCs. Another example was presented by ChemSep at the CAPE-OPEN 2017 Annual Meeting where operating and capital cost were included in a report made by a Unit Operation supplied to a Flowsheet User. Clearly, without the ability to share economic information with other Flowsheet objects, the ability to perform economic analysis and optimization of a Flowsheet is reduced.
By June 30, 2018 the Methods & Tools Special Interest Group had received helpful comments from AspenTech, AVEVA, CiT, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Optimized Gas Treating and Virtual Materials Group, These will be considered in the revision of the Parameter Common Interface specification.