• A flowsheet visualizes the plant layout. It contains raw material sources, units, pipes, buffer and storage tanks, waste sinks, and more typical elements.
  
• Materials, energies, and resources describe the raw materials and auxiliaries which are available in the virtual plant.

• Recipes describe the workflow of the production processes. That may be batch, continuous, or fed-batch steps. Operations can be scheduled as serial, parallel, or in alternative branches.
  
• An order list contains volumes and sequences of production orders. They are suited for single- or multi-product plants.

For recipes, INOSIM Process Edition provides an extensive library of unit operations. Apply simple black-box, shortcut, or rigorous models. Depending on your data you select an appropriate model from the library (e. g., for adsorption: yield or isotherms). Each model provides:

• A pre-defined recipe structure to describe the unit operation
• Mathematical models to describe mass and energy balances

The model library contains models for:

• Conversion: Fermentation, phytoextraction, reaction
• Cell disruption: Ball mill, homogenizer
• Phase separation: Filtration, centrifugation, settling, strainer
• Purification: Extraction, chromatography, ad-/desorption, crystallization
• Finishing: Freeze drying, UF/DF
• Miscellaneous: Add, heat/cool, split, evaporate, CIP/SIP, batch distillation

The simulation considers all frame conditions which are frequent in practice:

• As nature is subject to fluctuations, the model parameters need not be fixed values, but can also be set to probability functions. For example, INOSIM Process Edition allows to describe variations in the fermentation titer or in the adsorption capacity.
• Some materials have only limited durabilities, which can be considered within the simulation.
• Functions for scenario management enable easy experimenting with process alternatives and different production scenarios.

• An integrated Excel workbook provides additional input options. For example, INOSIM Process Edition allows to apply complex order lists.
• If required, you extend the simulation by a Visual Basic programming environment, e. g., to vary standard models or to apply customized models
• A comprehensive output of simulation results provides you with mass and energy balances. Furthermore, detailed information on resource and unit utilization is given. The cost calculation output covers material consumption costs, energy consumption costs, utilization costs, and all other variable production costs.