Book excerpt: In this first book dedicated to the logistics of chemical plants and production processes, authors from academia and industry -- such as Bayer, Degussa, Merck -- provide an overview of the field, incorporating the knowledge and experience gathered over the last 10 years. In so doing, they describe the latest ideas on efficient design, illustrating when to produce which part of the equipment and with which resources, so as to optimize chemical plants for high capacity and flexibility. This book gives an overview of the state-of-the-art of the whole logistic chain of chemical production processes. Alongside the fundamentals, tools and algorithms, and integration issues, the book features five significant industrial case studies.