Exchanges

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The Exchanges page lets you manage exchange groups, so that supplies and demands can be related to one another. After creating an exchange group, in the Supply Groups and Demand Groups tabs you can add supply and demand groups to the exchange group. You can then specify ratios in the Exchange Items tab. The supplies and demands in the corresponding groups are then constrained in the appropriate group ratios, ensuring the appropriate exchange of material.

In the remainder of this topic, exchange is used as synonym of exchange group.

Note: Exchanges, like all network activities, take place at nodes. There must be appropriate nodes at the sites which are part of an exchange. If the third party is giving material as part of the exchange, this is a supply node, while the site which receives material as part of the contract is a demand node.
Like all nodes in a network, in order for material to flow between the nodes there must be a .

Add an exchange

Follow these steps to add an exchange:

1. Go to the Exchanges tab of the Exchanges page.

2. Do either of the following:

   • Click Add Exchange in the Exchanges group of the Home ribbon tab.

   • Right-click anywhere in the table and choose Add Exchange from the context menu.

     A new row is added to the table.

3. Make sure that the check box in the Active column is selected if you want the exchange to be active within the optimization.

   When an exchange is not active, any ratios associated with exchanges in that group are not enforced during optimization. When a parent is not active, any child group ratios are not enforced during optimization (although if the child is active, descendant exchanges and groups have their ratios enforced).

4. Enter a Name for the exchange. Double click in the cell and type the new name.

5. Choose whether the exchange is weight- or volume-based from the Wgt/Vol column.

6. Optionally, enter any Minimum, Maximum or Fixed constraints on the amount of material that can be moved in the exchange, and choose the associated unit of measure. The amount is the sum of supplies and demands involved in the exchange.

7. If you have defined any constraints, you can choose whether to Pro Rata their amounts.

   Note that the Pro Rata column is not visible by default. See Customize the Grid below for how to manage columns.

   When this option is active, the amount is divided across all periods equally, weighted with respect to period duration, so that supply is approximately equal in all periods. When pro rata is not active, the amount is aggregated across all time so the constraint is applied, but may be utilized with a small set of periods. See Optimization across and within Periods for more details.

8. Optionally, enter a Description for the exchange.

After you optimize the case, you can see the Solution value for each exchange, and the and the Marginal value for any constraints that were applied.

Link supplies and demands to exchange

After creating an exchange as described above, you must link supplies and demands to it. Follow these steps:

9. In the Supply Groups tab of the Supplies page, create the supply groups associated with the exchange. These represent the materials supplied as part of the exchange. If multiple materials are constrained as part of the exchange contract, there may be multiple supply groups within the exchange.

10. Assign the supply groups you have created to the exchange group. To do so, select the exchange group in the Group column for each supply group.

    

11. In the Supplies tab, assign supplies to the groups you have created. Select the group name from the Group column. Note that this column is not visible by default in the Supplies tab. See Customize the Grid below for how to manage columns.

    Only available feedstocks may be made available as part of the exchange; therefore there must be an appropriate feedstock with associated property information available as part of the reference data. For example, if a competitor supplies alkylate in exchange for reformate there must be an alkylate feedstock available as a supplied material.

12. In the Demand Groups tab of the Demands page, create the demand groups associated with the exchange. These represent the materials transferred as part of the exchange in return for the supplies . If multiple materials are constrained as part of the exchange contract, there may be multiple demand groups within the exchange.

13. Assign the demand groups you have created to the exchange group. This is done in the same way as for the supply groups.

14. In the Demands tab, assign demands to the groups you have created. Again, this is done in the same way as for supplies, including the warning about the Group column not being visible by default.

    Only available grades may be made available as part of the exchange; therefore there must be an appropriate grade with associated property specifications available as part of the reference data. For example, if a competitor supplies alkylate in exchange for reformate, there must be a reformate grade available as a demanded material.

15. In the Exchange Items tab of the Exchanges page, define any constraints and ratio values for the supplies and demands you have added to the exchange.

Customize the grid

Customize the grid from the Grid group of the Home ribbon tab:

• Click Find to show or hide a text field at the top of the grid to filter the grid contents. Type in the text field to show only the rows with text matching what you have typed. The matching text is highlighted in the grid. See Filters for more details.

• Click Columns to open a small dialog windows where you can drag column headers to remove columns from the grid. You can then drag the headers back to the grid to restore the columns. See Add and Remove Columns in Manage Columns for more details.

• Choose a View from the list, or click the cogwheel icon to remove a view or save any changes. See Views for more details.

Show per-period information

Click the Periods button in the Periods group of the Home ribbon tab to expands each row of the grid to show per-period optimization results.