Software provides companies with sustainable competitive advantage
October 14, 2004 Control Station, Inc. today announced the launch of its 4.0 Product Suite. The newly released solutions improve performance of manufacturing systems through the application of advanced process control capabilities. The 4.0 Product Suite enables manufacturers to significantly reduce energy consumption at a time when global oil prices have reached record highs.
The link between lower energy costs and effective process control has become increasingly clear to manufacturers. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, more than forty percent of production costs within the chemicals and petroleum processing industries are attributed to energy consumption. Recent volatility in the supply of crude oil has resulted in a precipitous increase in the cost per barrel, inflating manufacturers cost of goods sold and impacting their bottom-line profitability. By optimizing plant performance, Control Stations automatic process control solutions materially reduce energy consumption.
Our 4.0 solutions provide manufacturers with a sustainable competitive advantage, stated Dennis Nash, President of Control Station. In addition to increases to production output and top-line revenue, our software solutions are capable of reducing energy costs a benefit that directly impacts bottom-line profitability.
This product suite is the result of close collaboration with our customers in industry, and it represents a significant advancement in Control Station’s ability to address the needs of companies across the process industries, commented Dr. Douglas Cooper, the company’s Founder and Chief Technology Officer. It elevates the effectiveness and efficiency of control technicians, engineers, and research scientists by equipping them with technologies that are both sophisticated and easy to use.
The cornerstone of Control Station’s 4.0 Product Suite is ENGINEER. With over forty industry-standard process models, Engineer addresses the diverse process requirements of manufacturers and speeds the accurate tuning of plant process controllers. The modeling and tuning capabilities of Engineer allow users to achieve increased stability and optimal response to disturbances within production processes. According to the Carbon Trust, an independent not-for-profit organization that monitors industrial carbon emissions, regular tuning of process controllers can reduce energy consumption by as much as fifteen percent.
The Company’s DEVELOPER solution combines modeling and tuning capabilities with rapid process design and simulation utilities Control Station’s custom process toolkit. Using Developer, engineering staff can easily design new process control architectures or trial modifications to existing ones. The solution supports advanced and industry-relevant control methods, including cascade, feed-forward and Smith predictor capabilities for integrating processes. In many industry segments, the process controls are left unchanged for years, costing companies tens of thousands of dollars annually. With crude oil priced $10 higher since August, manufacturers are seeing profits deteriorate dramatically.
