Newest Release of PlantESP Expands Analysis of PID Control Loops and Process Instrumentation
July 30, 2014 Control Station today announced the latest release of its highly intuitive and market leading control loop performance monitoring platform. PlantESP includes new and advanced diagnostics for assessing performance issues associated with PID control loops and associated instrumentation. The new capabilities augment the value of PlantESP and further strengthen its position within the category of plant-wide process diagnostic and optimization solutions.
Already a platform uniquely suited for optimizing PID controller performance, PlantESP’s advanced forensic capabilities now include tools for identifying and qualifying issues associated with valves. Valves are the dominant form of final control element applied in the regulation of industrial production processes. Inefficiencies in valve operation can have significant consequences that echo across a production facility, and valve performance issues such as Stiction are regularly misdiagnosed. This is often the result of incorrect or incomplete information, resulting in additional and costly maintenance.
Most process engineers are tasked with solving performance issues with limited information at their disposal, commented Brett Beauregard, Control Station’s Director of Product Development. They need tools that accurately diagnose problems and simplify corrective action processes. Were delivering those capabilities with PlantESP.
Control loop performance monitoring (CLPM) software is a class of technology that has recently gained significant market momentum. Unfortunately many CLPM tools consistently fail to supply either true performance insights or actionable information. Market feedback also points to the excessive use of metrics that are difficult to interpret and only marginally valuable.
We’re maintaining a leadership position through our commitment to product innovation, stated Dennis Nash, the Company’s President. Value-added features such as these address the most pressing challenges facing our customers. They equip end-users with awareness and empower them to improve plant-wide performance.
PlantESP actively monitors control loop performance. By accessing a production facility’s process data and applying a battery of key performance indices (KPIs), the solution identifies negative performance trends and facilitates root-cause analysis. New features within PlantESP provide end-users with important details related to both valve and PID controller operation, including:
- Stiction: Assesses the probability and quantifies the amount of Stiction within a given control loop. Enables end-users to quickly identify and analyze valve behavior that undermines control.
- Oscillation: Quantifies the rate of variability within a given control loop due to process and/or valve nonlinearity, and facilitates isolation of the associated root-cause.
- Noise: Measures random signal variation and identifies control loops in need of filtering to reduce wear and tear.
The Company’s recent investments in the PlantESP solution are in direct response to demand across the process industries for intuitive plant-wide process diagnostics. PlantESP continues to distinguish itself from other CLPM tools with its intuitive design and actionable information. Other unique capabilities such as TuneVue enable process manufacturers to optimize PID control loop performance using every day changes in Controller Output. TuneVue is based on Control Station’s patent-pending NSS Modeling Innovation that eliminates the need for a steady-state condition when modeling oscillatory and noisy process data, making it ideal for use in plant-wide control loop monitoring. The new version of PlantESP has been successfully deployed to Control Station’s growing base of process manufacturers.
