(76c) An Advanced Control Platform for Smaller Plants

The cost of implementing advanced control can be prohibitive for certain plants in the processing industry.  These tend to be smaller plants where incremental advanced control benefits do not translate into the large savings that are typically used to justify advanced control in large facilities.  However, there may still be opportunities for achieving significant benefits in these smaller plants.  Beyond the cost issues, many smaller plants also face challenges: Maintaining the skill set to implement advanced functions at the DCS or PLC level; Implementing on the various hardware that may be in use; and operating with minimal or no control room operators.  

To meet the needs of smaller plants, an integrated control platform called AutoPilot has been developed and applied to a range of processes over the last 15 years.  In the following, the key components - MPC, fuzzy logic, inferred values, external calculation, and optimization - are described and specific technical features that have proven useful highlighted.   Examples are presented which show the capabilities and application of the product in midstream, chemical, and mining industries.