Continuous production

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Part of a series of articles on
Industry
Manufacturing methods Batch production • Job production Continuous production
Improvement methods LM • TPM • QRM TOC • Six Sigma • RCM
Information & communication ISA-88 • ISA-95 • ERP SAP • IEC 62264 • B2MML
Process control PLC • DCS

Continuous production is a method used to manufacture, produce, or process materials without interruption. This process is followed in most oil and gas industries and petrochemical plant and in other industries such as the float glass industry, where glass of different thickness is processed in a continuous manner. Once the molten glass flows out of the furnace, machines work on the glass from either side and either compress or expand it. Controlling the speed of rotation of those machines and varying them in numbers produces a glass ribbon of varying width and thickness.

Continuous production is largely controlled by production controllers with feedback. The majority of transducers and controllers employ PID (Proportional, Integral, and Derivative) control which controls the final output element based on the variables response to the control element.

The most important difference between batch production and continuous production is that in Continuous the chemical transformations of the input materials are made in continuous reactions that occur in flowing streams of the materials whereas in Batch they are done in containers.