Control Station PlantESP provides control loop performance monitoring designed for rapid deployment at one site or throughout the entire enterprise, helping companies cultivate highly-skilled workforces and create competitive advantages.
While many process-plant optimization efforts follow a loop-by-loop bottom-up approach, some major industry players are realizing greater and more widespread gains by pursuing a top-down strategy—when empowered by the right software.
A Processing May 2025 article titled Enterprise-Scale Analytics Propel Paper & Packaging Production Improvements explores how Smurfit Westrock, a global manufacturer of paper and packaging products, worked with Control Station to rapidly deploy PlantESP control loop performance monitoring (CLPM) software rapidly throughout the organization, creating significant performance, quality, and efficiency improvements.
Data-driven optimization
The Smurfit Westrock team was already familiar with the value of CLPM software, which was implemented at many of the facilities. However, they saw a need to select a singular, scalable solution to take full advantage of data-driven analytics and optimization so they could standardize performance improvements and accelerate deployment across 24 facilities. This called for optimizing over 25,000 control loops using software that would fit architecturally with existing company assets, while being easy-to-use by both mill staff and centralized IT and controls teams.
The initiative began with a rigorous evaluation of five potential CLPM solutions. Key criteria included seamless integration with the company’s existing AVEVA PI System historian, user-friendly and intuitive interfaces, scalable architecture, and strong supplier support. Control Station’s PlantESP emerged as the optimal choice due to its deep compatibility with PI System, availability of REST APIs, OT-focused KPIs, and advanced forensic tools, such as power spectrum and cross-correlation analysis.
An agile deployment
Deployment started at one site and scaled rapidly after initial successes. Several systems integrators audited and standardized the PI System data—tag structures, control loops, and parameters—across multiple facilities in parallel, ensuring consistency and data quality for effective analytics.
Because PlantESP works natively with and takes advantage of the PI Asset Framework, all data and conditioning information flow seamlessly from PI to PlantESP, an architecture enabling direct access to high-quality data without the need for intermediate databases. This reduces infrastructure complexity and costs. PlantESP’s built-in modeling, state-based functionality, and visualization tools empowered both control engineers and business stakeholders to diagnose performance issues and take corrective action swiftly.
Wrapping up savings
Within six months, Smurfit Westrock documented multimillion-dollar savings driven by double-digit improvements in energy consumption, chemical usage, product quality, and material loss reduction. These results were integrated into the company’s existing Power BI dashboards, enabling unified, site-to-site performance comparison and continuous improvement monitoring.
A partnership and collaborative mindset enabled rapid deployment of a high-performance solution spanning 24 facilities in just 14 months … Control Station truly understood what WestRock was trying to do and worked with them to reach their shared goals.
The solution supports effective collaboration throughout the company, making it possible for controls engineers at a centralized corporate location to support all facilities. Control Station backs ongoing success with semi-annual training, responsive support, and product enhancements. Although the original timeline was considered aggressive, the full implementation across 24 sites was completed in just 14 months—four months ahead of schedule.
