What Does Controller Output Reveal About FCE Health and Asset Reliability?
Remember the Far Side? Of course you do, but do you remember the one depicting the boy who leans his whole body forward as he pushes against a door that clearly reads “Pull”? Although the sign leading up to the building shows “Midvale School for the Gifted” this particular student doesn’t seem to get it. Any possibility of progress is blocked by a physical constraint... Read More
What Do I Need to Know About OSI’s Asset Framework?
Asset Framework from OSIsoft changes a manufacturer’s ability to extract value from plant data. It takes the seemingly infinite number of tags registered within the data historian and organizes them in an intelligent, hierarchical manner. This structure is increasingly valuable as plants apply sensor technologies to more and more equipment for the purpose of monitoring performance. Read More
What is the Moving Boxcar Method? How is Boxcar Averaging Applied to Control Loop Monitoring?
No surprise - advanced diagnostic tools like PlantESP constantly crunch data in order to uncover important trends and provide actionable insights. As the automation market’s leading controller performance monitoring solution PlantESP typically performs complex calculations on each PID control... Read More
What Effect Does Noise Have on Controller Tuning?
Noise – that random variation in your data signals – is seemingly everywhere. Low frequency process and high frequency signal noise are two sources that directly affect control. There’s no avoiding it. Indeed, when tuning PID controllers practitioners simply need to deal with it. As they say: It is what it is! Read More
What is a Micro-Historian?
News flash – the market for pneumatics has been marginalized significantly by digital control. And with data being increasingly central to the average plant’s day-to-day plant operations it’s no surprise that the market for data historians is growing. Without data the staff in operations, engineering, and maintenance would be hard pressed to control production either safely or profitably. Read More
What to Learn from a Plant’s Frequency Data
If you’re old enough to remember the Internet browser called Netscape, then you may remember the company’s CEO – Jim Barksdale – who once quipped: “If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have is opinions, let’s go with mine.” Fortunately for those that come to this blog there’s typically sufficient amounts of data. That said, a question often raised relative to a plant’s process data is: What gems are hidden in it? Read More
What’s the Difference between FactoryTalk Historian and PI?
The market for data historians continues to expand rapidly. Credit that trend to the growing appetite among process manufacturers for advanced analytics. As the market grows so too does the number of questions about the different products that are available. Read More
Where Can I Get Control Station 3.7? What Happened to Control Station v3.7?
While not all things get better with time some things do actually improve as they age. Anyone over 40 might argue with that statement, and they might have every reason to do so from a personal and physical standpoint. Even so, just a casual glance around – whether in an academic or an industrial setting – offers signs of progress nearly everywhere. To be sure there’s been plenty of progress here at Control Station. Read More
How Does Loop Monitoring Help with Root-Cause Analysis?
For most individuals, a house is the most expensive asset that they’ll ever purchase. And while living there a homeowner can expect a significant problem or two to arise whether that problem involves a leaky roof, termite damage, or some other costly issue. A downside of such problems is that the damage is typically and irrevocably done before the homeowner encounters the first visible signs that the issue even existed. Read More
