Loop Performance Monitoring Integration with Rockwell Process Automation
Just catching up on news that has built up over the extended holidays from Thanksgiving through New Years with one on process automation. I had a chat with Control Station’s Dennis Nash about the planned integration of its PlantESP Loop Performance Monitoring technology within the PlantPAx distributed control system from Rockwell Automation. Process data will be accessed natively from within the PlantPAx system environment using FactoryTalk Historian, and individual PID control loop configuration will be automatically populated to the new application’s dashboard.
Rockwell just keeps growing its process business. Its Process Systems User Group held last November in Chicago was yet another large gathering.
“Rockwell Automation continues its efforts to better serve the process industries by leveraging best-in-class solutions from its network of Encompass partners,” shared Tim Shope, Global Process Technical Consultant Manager from Rockwell Automation. “PlantESP is an obvious fit in that it will provide our customers with enhanced awareness of issues affecting their process’ day-to-day operational efficiency.”
Control Station’s PlantESP actively monitors the performance of PID control loops on a plant-wide basis and provides actionable insights. Equipped with a portfolio of key performance indices and advanced forensic tools, PlantESP simplifies the identification of performance issues and the isolation of the associated root-causes. Specific performance challenges addressed by PlantESP range from mechanical and controller tuning issues to constraints associated with process architecture. PlantESP uses a production facility’s existing process data and proactively alerts production staff of negative performance trends.
“The average plant has 100s if not 1000s of control loops which can be challenging for production staff to manage,” noted Rick Bontatibus, Control Station’s Vice President of Global Sales. “The combination of the PlantPAx System and PlantESP enables those same staff to focus their efforts on issues that will have the greatest impact on production efficiency and throughput.”
PlantESP is recognized as a leading control loop performance monitoring technology that has been successfully deployed at production facilities spanning the process industries. It is equipped with an array of highly effective and proprietary diagnostic tools, including advanced KPIs for identifying and quantifying stiction – a leading mechanical issue facing process engineers. PlantESP also includes a unique optimization utility called TuneVue that proactively captures everyday output changes for the purpose of isolating control loops that are in need of tuning. TuneVue is based on Control Station’s NSS Modeling Innovation and it is the only such utility that can accurately model the noisy, oscillatory process dynamics which are typical of industrial production and control environments. Collectively these and other PlantESP capabilities allow production staff to prioritize their efforts on issues that will have the greatest impact on performance.