MAXIMIZING PROCESS PRODUCTION RATES USING PERMANENT CONSTRAINTS

The present invention optimizes the relationship of variables associated with a process having inputs and outputs such that the process has controlled variables, manipulated variables, associated variables and disturbance variables, to maximize production rates. The method of optimizing the relationship includes the steps of prioritizing errors associated with the controlled variables, optimizing controlled variable deviations from their setpoints over a predetermined future time horizon based upon manipulated variable differential moves, suppressing errors associated with the future controlled variable while penalizing moves having large manipulated variable movement for balancing the reduction of future control error against large manipulated variable movement, weighting the manipulated variables for reducing deviation of the manipulated variable from a predetermined target value set artificially high so as to allow preferential movement with respect to some manipulated variables over other manipulated variables, and applying a constraint deviation variable to effectuate deviations outside allowable bounds.