A discussion of the actual status of process control in theory and practice: a personal view from German process industry

Abstract

Abstract The contribution aims at stimulating a dialogue between academia and industry: from an application point of view, the authors observe in the field of process control an ongoing drift between theory and practice. As engineers, the authors are concerned that this drift weakens the position of process control as a whole. Hence, a thorough analysis and a following discussion are at need. In order to contribute to the aforementioned dialogue, first the state of the art of process control in the Western European chemical industry is reported by displaying the results of a Western-European-wide survey. Thereafter, a discussion of the actual context of industrial applications of process control is led. Finally, the contribution is concluded in view of opening the field for the dialogue in need by some remarks fostering the future of process control as a whole.