APC II: No More Step Testing!

Some time ago, I wrote about the Advanced Process Control (APC) business and how it has delivered value but now faces a unique set of challenges related to vendor profitability and application maintenance.

In that posting, I proposed that some next-generation technology would reinvigorate the market by easing maintenance requirements while also improving application performance.  At PAS, the same super-genius who helped launch advanced control is back with his latest innovation – one that we have code-named “Galaxy”.

Without getting into details, Galaxy simplifies the whole business of implementing APC applications by making automating many of the implementation and maintenance requirements.  Galaxy packages up some very state-of-the-art technologies into a single application with a much lower “genius factor” requirement to the engineer.

Galaxy also extends the reach of APC applications by lowering costs and increasing benefits.  A lot.

Check this out…

Galaxy lowers costs by completely dropping the requirement for step-testing and model identification. The necessary process dynamics are identified automatically from actual plant data.

Galaxy also lowers costs by eliminating ongoing model maintenance.  The dynamic model is re-identified automatically and in real-time so that the controller is always consistent with changes to plant operation.

This is a big deal!

Traditional multivariable control technologies require that a highly-skilled APC engineer be onsite to maintain the multivariable controllers to keep them running effectively.  This costs an average US-based plant at least $30,000 per year per application. Or more, depending on how skilled the APC engineer is.

And in today’s environment, every plant manager would take a $150,000/year savings in a heartbeat.

>> For the doubters among you, PAS’s STAR multivariable control software has been delivering these no-step-test / no-model-maintenance to hundreds of sites worldwide for years as a predecessor to the latest Galaxy innovations.

Other vendors are just now catching on to the idea and introducing their own versions of this approach, but none have the 10+ years of installed base and field experience to match the hidden gem we call STAR…

Cost reduction is only one side of the story.  Increased benefit is the other.

More on that later…