Control for profit

Abstract

For some years the process industry has not benefited as much as it might have done from the application of control technology. The twin pressures of the economic situation and environmental concerns have focused company attention at all aspects of their operations and, in particular, on cost-effective ways of maximising the return from existing assets. This, together with the emergence of some robust control techniques and the power of modern computing systems, has resulted in some spectacular operational improvements. This is resulting in increased management awareness of the power of control techniques to provide a high return on investment. The background to this change of perception is presented together with the description of an industryproven approach to highlighting profit opportunities and quantifying the benefit of investment in process control improvement before a commitment to expenditure is made. Recent developments and established control techniques that are effective in recovering these predicted benefits are described with reference to other papers in this issue of the transactions.