Process manufacturers across many world areas continually look for ways to improve energy usage, operational efficiency, and quality with the limited resources they have to execute these improvement projects. In a recent Hydrocarbon Processing magazine article,...
advanced process control
Quick Hit Path to Plant Optimization
For U.S. refiners, the bulk of project spending is on core business drivers including safety, environmental performance, and reliability programs. Projects that optimize performance and improve energy efficiency often don't make the cut. At the AIChE National Spring...
Improved, Efficient Crude Fractionation Unit Operation
I plucked this story from a growing and vibrant, "inside the Emerson firewall" community. This community connects Emerson global sales, project, and application folks together, primarily to ask about references--"has this has been integrated with that" sort of...
Reducing Distillation Column Energy Usage
I saw some startling facts in a presentation by Emerson's Pete Sharpe, whom you may recall from many process optimization-related posts. This week he visited The Automation Group (TAG) office in Houston, to discuss distillation and fired heater optimization. I was...
Neural Network for Product Quality Estimation
Neural networks, not the ones in our brains, but the ones that came out of the artificial intelligence research, began back in the 1940s. This advanced process control (APC) technology has been used in the process industries for many years for applications ranging...
Applying Automation Advances in Refineries
Update and bump: Tim just let me know that he's been elected to the position of 2nd Vice Chair for the AIChE Fuels & Petrochemicals Division (FPD). As described below, he'll serve a four-year term including one year as division president. Congratulations, Tim!...
Applying Advanced Process Control to Distillation Processes
For those attending the Emerson Exchange with distillation processes, you don't want to miss Emerson's Lou Heavner's presentation, Advanced Distillation - 102. Lou is an advanced control consultant, whom you may recall from earlier posts. He'll be presenting Wed, 9/30...
A View of MPC Control from Operations to Design
I caught up with Emerson's Lou Heavner the other day and we traded a few teenager "war stories." Lou is an advanced automation consultant and I've shared some of his expertise in posts over the years. He mentioned he had done a very basic presentation to show the...
A Few Tips to Optimize Your Process
I've featured quite a number of experts around Emerson over these past three years. Some categories, like Process Optimization, have more than 50 posts. There is quite a bit of wisdom mixed in all those posts. A few months ago, I was asked by Plant Engineering...
Dealing with Fixed Deadtime with the Smith Predictor Algorithm
I recently exchanged some emails with Emerson's Sergei Kuznetsov, part of TAG projects organization, and based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sergei is principal control systems engineer, certified professional engineer, and has an MSEE degree. He shared with me an...
Loop Performance and Sharing What’s Learned
When I struggle with a technical issue, whether it is hardware, software or just something I'm trying to understand better, I usually start with Google. I'll add as many relevant keywords as I can think of, and add "howto" as one more keyword. The search often returns...
Seminar on Energy Saving Opportunities
Let's close the week with a short post about energy saving opportunities. The pain of higher energy costs is fresh on my mind with an unexpected trip by car from Austin to Houston and back with gasoline prices now just shy of $4/gallon USD. Back in May, I wrote about...
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