Implementation of startup sequencing and operation of natural gas processing units using the AHP method

The natural gas processing industry supplies products and derivatives to society and is intended to meet the demand of a competitive market aligned to lean production and process optimization. Thus, this industry is composed of industrial parks, that have more than one natural gas processing unit and requires assertive decision making, to define the starting sequencing and operation of these units. This selection is strategic for the organization and must meet several criteria, such as: the market's demand, production flow, production efficiency, waste reduction, lean production, among others. The objective of this work is define the optimal start sequencing of 4 natural gas processing units, which go into parallel operation according to demand. Owing to the multivariate nature of processing plants, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to optimize this decision making step. At the end of this work, we present the results obtained by AHP method, as well as the feasibility analysis, optimized start-up sequencing and proposals for the continuation of this study.