Here are the ten rules for successful scale-up of processes to industrial production scale. The rules have been derived from literature on scale-up and validated by industrial scale implementations. The rules are applicable to continuous and batch operated processes for industry branches, Oil & Gas, Chemicals (bulk, fine, specialty), Pharmaceuticals, Minerals processing, and Food. The rules are written as questions to be answered for the project at hand. The rule sequence means that the answers to the questions should be given from the top to the bottom. As soon as an answer to a rule is no, then the remaining answers have little meaning. So, if for instance the answer to the first rule is no, then the expected chance of the project success is zero. If the answers to the first four rules is yes, then the project start-up success is likely to be similar to the industry average. If all ten answers are positive, then the project is expected to have a shorter start-up time then the industry average.
| Ten Rules for Successful Scale-up |
| For Research, Development, Design, Procurement and Construction |
| 1: Process is correctly defined as new? |
| 2: Integrated down-scaled pilot plant available (if needed)? |
| 3: R&D knowledge integration into experienced EPC contractor? |
| 4: Scale-up knowledge for unit operations available? |
| For Start-up preparation |
| 5: Potential problem analysis carried out? |
| 6: Precaution measures taken? |
| 7: Complete start-up team? |
| 8: Operators trained for start-up and operation? |
| 9: Start-up plan? |
| 10 Documentation? |
All back-ground information to the ten rules can be found in the book: Jan Harmsen, Industrial Process Scale-up, second edition, Elsevier, Amsterdam 2019.