Overview of Cascade Control

By Control Guru | January 10, 2017

While Cascade Control is generally considered an advanced control strategy, it is only marginally more complex to implement than Single Loop Control. More often than not it is applied to improve the performance of a slow process such as temperature that demonstrates sluggish behavior. Essentially Cascade Control improves a “slow” control loop’s ability to respond to disturbances by capitalizing on the dynamics of a faster one – something quicker like a flow or a pressure loop. The faster loop provides an early warning variable that facilitates disturbance rejection, helping to maintain steady performance of the slower primary loop.

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How Do Plant-Wide Diagnostics Pinpoint a PID Controller Performance Issues

By Control Guru | December 13, 2016

It may not be hard to imagine: It’s holiday season. You’re headed to the local shopping plaza. You’ve got one, two, maybe more children in tow. There are thousands of cars competing for a fixed number of parking spots. Items on your list are in limited supply – of course. The permutations of things that could go wrong seem unlimited as each of these factors interact with each other. Anxiety builds. The crowds. The lines. The waiting. If you only had the ability to track the movement of other consumers on a mall-wide basis and avoid problems that put your shopping mission at risk!

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What’s the Big Deal with TuneVue?

By Control Guru | November 15, 2016

You may have read references to TuneVue on this blog or seen it listed on our corporate website. If you’re still curious about what it is, then there’s a simple answer: TuneVue is a powerful optimization utility within our PlantESP plant monitoring software. It evaluates a production facility’s existing process data in order to both identify specific control loops that require tuning and recommend the parameters needed to achieve optimal performance. TuneVue may sound like some advanced version of auto-tune, but it’s so much more.

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The Relationship Between Loop Performance Monitoring and Loop Tuning

By Control Guru | September 28, 2016

Imagine that you just purchased software to help with the tuning of your plant’s control loops.  You’re ready to enhance control and to improve production throughput and efficiency, right?  With software successfully installed you consider the 100s if not 1000s of PID controllers regulating your facility’s processes.  A question now comes into focus: Where do you start?

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What Should I Look for in Performance Monitoring Software?

By Control Guru | August 10, 2016

You’ve probably heard it referred to as Control Loop Performance Monitoring, Loop Performance Monitoring, Controller Performance Monitoring, or even just Monitoring software.  The long list of names aside, the technology is relatively new and it addresses a need shared by most manufacturers.  That need is for improved awareness of issues negatively affecting a plant’s control loop performance.  The benefits of these monitoring tools range from increases in production output and quality to reductions in energy consumption and waste.  While more and more of PID controller monitoring technologies are popping up the question remains: What’s needed in Control Loop Performance Monitoring solution?

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Using Percent Time in Normal to Uncover Tuning Issues

By dennisnash | January 27, 2016

Even Simple Metrics Such as Percent Time in Normal Reveal Issues that Negatively Affect Performance and Signal the Need for Controller Tuning

It’s easy to get tripped up if a shoelace is untied. Just ask any child. While that’s a lesson most learn early in their lives each of us can occasionally slip up and find ourselves at risk.

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