| Process Control and Optimization (PCO) is the discipline of adjusting a process to maintain or optimize a specified set of parameters without violating process constraints. The most common goals of PCO are minimizing costs and maximizing throughput or efficiency. |
| The PCO market is being driven by rising demand for energy efficient production processes, safety and security concerns, and the development of IoT systems that can reliably predict process deviations. In comparison to conventional process control technology, advanced process control software allows monitoring of process parameters at a granular level, resulting in greater visibility and more rapid identification of issues or improvement opportunities. Benefits include increased production capacity, minimized energy consumption, lower feedstock variability to downstream units, reduction in process setting time, faster modification of processes, improved process safety, increase in equipment reliability and better operational understanding of the entire plant.
Areas of Process Optimization:
Fundamentally, there are three parameters that can be adjusted to affect optimal performance. They are:
- Equipment optimization
The first step is to verify that the existing equipment is being used to its fullest advantage by examining operating data to identify equipment bottlenecks.
- Operating procedures
Operating procedures may vary widely from person-to-person or from shift-to-shift. Automation of the plant can help significantly. But automation will be of no help if the operators take control and run the plant in manual.
- Control optimization
In a typical processing plant, such as a chemical plant or oil refinery, there are hundreds or even thousands of control loops. Each control loop is responsible for controlling one part of the process, such as maintaining a temperature, level, or flow.
If the control loop is not properly designed and tuned, the process runs below its optimum. The process will be more expensive to operate, and equipment will wear out prematurely. For each control loop to run optimally, identification of sensor, valve, and tuning problems is important. It has been well documented that over 35% of control loops typically have problems.
The process of continuously monitoring and optimizing the entire plant is sometimes called performance supervision.
Key vendors: Emerson, Schneider Electric |
338 Nanjing West Road. Tian'an