Process Industries 2

3Industrialization: From Research to Final Product

Chapter written by Jean-Pierre DAL PONT.

PRELIMINARY NOTE.– This chapter covers the industrially very important areas of process development, project management and industrialization including engineering, which is its implementation phase. In fact, it barely covers them; a full study would require several books. We tried to highlight key concepts around references that should allow readers to effectively engage with experts and simply find their way. For example, the notions of project owner and general contractor or prime contractor, which often prove confusing.

Regulatory aspects such as building permits are merely mentioned. The same is true of return on investment.

The reader will find in the books referenced (Charpentier et al. 2014; Dal Pont 2012; Dal Pont and Azzaro-Pantel 2014; Poux 2010) additional information regarding the notions developed hereafter.

The purpose of the industrial process enterprise is to bring to market use-value products, as explained in Chapter 1 of the first volume. The final goal of the company is to sell. To this end, it implements means of production (workshops, plants) that are specific to the company, which it shares with third parties in partnerships or JVs (joint ventures) or that it sub-contracts to specialized companies in whole or in part.

Imagine a drug of a complex chemical nature resulting from the transformation of multiple raw materials that undergo successive reactions, separations, ...