Traditionally, most of the sensors in industrial processes were wired into the control systems or supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. Because of the expense of the sensors, junction boxes, cabling/conduit/cable trays/etc. and installation and...
improve & modernize
What is Operational Certainty?
A lot of businesses benchmark themselves against other companies in the same industry and against themselves over time using various metrics and key performance indicators (KPI's). One example of this is Solomon Associates Benchmarking which is widely used, especially...
Optimizing Distillation for Increased Methanol Capacity
Author: James Gremillion When the process licensor designed your methanol plant, everything fit together to exactly produce the nameplate amount of methanol yearly. In the design there were necessary tradeoffs made because of costs, physical size, availability of...
Achieving Operational Excellence through Automation
Typically, you'll find broadly used production and data management systems at the heart of effective operational excellence programs. These systems help to identify aging plant infrastructure before these assets lead to unplanned shutdowns, slowdowns and quality...
Model Predictive Control Tips & Techniques Preview
Moving from the theoretical world of proportional-integral-derivative control to applying it successfully is a hurdle new process control engineers face. Once mastered, the next step might be in applying advanced process controls. Model predictive control, neural...
Planning and Justifying Control System Modernization Projects
Author: John Dolenc It is nice to hear from our customers and read in the literature that it has become important to not just replace obsolete control system equipment, but to also provide operational improvement. For the longest time I have been puzzled by the idea...
State-Based Alarm Management
The ISA106 committee on Procedure Automation for Continuous Process Operations is chartered with: …developing standards, recommended practices, and technical reports on the design and implementation of procedures for automating continuous process operations. The...
Applying Technology to Modernize Control Systems
Those of us in the "baby boomer" generation know how fast time goes by. Children grow up quickly and the control systems running our process manufacturing and production facilities age. There's not much we can do about kids growing up quickly, but we do have ways to...
Optimizing Sugar Mill Boiler Performance
Steam boilers are used in sugar mills to generate electricity and for heat in various stages of production, such as crystallization process. This process converts the sugar syrup into sugar crystals. Optimizing the performance of the boilers improves energy efficiency...
Optimizing the Ammonia Production Process
Author: James Gremillion One of the earliest applications of "computer control", a now archaic term, on an ammonia plant was done in 1969 by Weissenfelder and Shah of Borden Chemical and IBM respectively. They were able to implement advanced control schemes in a...
Inputs for Developing Control System Migration Strategies
Author: Scott Turner When considering replacing your existing control system with a new control system it is important to plan the project up front. At Emerson on a typical Greenfield project, we would write a Project Execution Strategy. This is pretty standard...
Where to Look for Benefits in DCS Modernization Project Justification
We'll continue with our series on getting your brownfield automation project approved. In part one, Front End Planning for Control System Modernization Projects, we explored how changes in the project become more expensive the later in the schedule that they are made....
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