Research objectives and approaches 

Execution  of  the  ENERGY-SMARTOPS  project  involves  activities  in  five  work package  each  of  which  will address one or two of three Research Objectives, as follows:  
 

• Research Objective 1: To develop scalable and complete equipment monitoring systems

• Research Objective 2: To devise new algorithms for overall performance monitoring and control 

• Research Objective 3: To study ways that energy savings can be achieved 

The large-scale industrial partners are of two types:  
 

• BASF, STAT, TK-AST are operating companies (chemicals, oil & gas, steel) 

• ABB  (ABB-DE,  ABB-NO,  ABB-PL)  are  members  of  the  ABB  group  that  supplies  equipment  and services. 

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Each work package has been constructed to include at least one industrial partner and one or more universities. Therefore all ESRs will gain experience of alternative R&D approaches.  Projects in the work packages take several different approaches:  

 

• Underpinning study:  to determine the scope of an entirely new research area 

• Feasibility study: to establish whether suggested methods might be suitable to solve a problem 

• Theory/methods: to development of new theoretical concepts and methods for solution 

• Case study:  to demonstrate that theory and methods work in practice

• Tool  development:  to  undertake  the  first  stage  of  knowledge  transfer  by  creating  tools  (usually software) for others to use  

 

In general the programme has been constructed so that ESRs undertaking training by research will experience more  than  one  approach  to  research.