Incatools blog

Advanced Process Control (APC) carries a raft of benefits. Any competent control engineer can list at least a dozen. That list will often contain only quantitative benefits - emphasizing production yields, feedstock flows, product qualities and the like. There are however also other benefits to advanced process control - benefits less strictly numeric, but nonetheless with a huge impact on operating efficiency.

As a production manager, you have one main goal: optimal and stable operations. You need to reach your production targets while taking care of the plant’s efficiency and safety. Optimal functioning of the entire production process in its broadest sense — achieving objectives for safety, quality, quantity, costs, environmental impact and reliability — is your responsibility. A low cost way t boost process performance therefore may seem like the holy grail.

In this blog, we'll describe 6 ways how PID Tuning boosts plant performance. Are you curious about this holy grail yet?

Leading specialty chemicals company, Lanxess Belgium, noticed the plant wasn’t working at its full potential. Many controllers were underperforming and in manual mode. Due to lack of time, the control engineers ran aground to complete optimization. Read in this blog what benefits they gained by using the INCATools software, or download the case study to discover the process and results.

When PID tuning it is done right, it can provide significant benefits to your plant. A little help from PID tuning software can help tremendously to get your tuning on track. You can find many free PID tuning software downloads on the internet, or you can find a free PID tuner in your DCS. Nevertheless, are numerous companies that provide PID software licences at a fair price. But, why would you pay for a PID tuning software licence when you can do somewhat the same with the free versions? 

The answer is simple, the most critical PID loops in your plant will get left behind when you use free PID tuning software. The freeware will stand in the way of optimization and receiving the full ROI of your plant.

The principle of PID is very simple. Three subsets (P, I, D) of one equation that each have their own task. Nevertheless, the PID formula in your DCS/PLC can have many forms. The most common equations are the series and parallel equation. In this blog we'll show you that it's extremely important to know the different formulas to tune your controller. 

For FrieslandCampina, improving work processes on plant sites is an ongoing course of action. Therefore, it’s fundamental to be aware of possible shortcomings and growth potential of these processes. They decided to implement INCATools PID tuner, a tool that matched the technical criteria and scored high on usability because of the integrated roadmap. Read in this blog why FrieslandCampina needed to change course and what benefits the software offered.

It’s no secret that well-tuned PID loops contribute to a stable and healthy plant. Once optimally tuned, only critical PID loops that cause too many alarms tend to be tuned again. Underperforming loops are often ignored. But if you frequently analyze all your PID loops you can enhance total efficiency, have less wear and tear, more overall stability, and fewer operator interventions. Read in this blog why it is essential to monitor your PID’s and how to perform monitoring most cost-effectively.

More than a hundred years ago, Sperry Corporation invented automatic pilot control in airplanes. It was magical and scary at the same time. Nowadays, they can anticipate the exact arrival time, other planes nearby, and the weather forecast. It became unimaginable that our planes would fly without it. Model-based Predictive Control in an APC (Advanced Process Control) project is the automatic pilot in plants. APC projects can maximize your performance and plant's profit. For decades, the chemical process industry has been working with it. It can benefit smaller plants considerably as well. However, proper PID tuning is the first step in an APC project. It is the foundation for your automatic plant pilot, learn in this blog why.

It's no secret that proper PID tuning will contribute to a stable plant with fewer variations and fluctuations. Optimal and stable operations are the ultimate goal. This can result in several percentages of extra throughput and several percentages reduction of specific energy consumption. Additional throughput is highly desired in high market conditions, while the specific energy consumption might be more interesting when selling prices are low and energy prices high. In all cases, more stability results in fewer alarms and fewer operator interventions.
In this blog, you will learn why PID tuning improves process performance and how to accomplish this technical result of PID tuning.