Process Control Performance Assessment : From Theory to Implementation

"Process Control Performance Assessment" is a guide to the application of control benchmarking to industrial processes. It presents commercial solutions and techniques still under development and contains real industrial case studies from the oil and gas, power and chemical industries. The effect of benchmarking and control tuning on process performance and revenue optimisation is demonstrated.

Practical issues to do with implementing benchmarking algorithms in industrial processes are covered in detail and guidelines for avoiding common problems given. The impact of problems like valve stiction and plant-wide disturbances on process performance is reviewed and methods for diagnosing causative fault conditions suggested.

The benefits of using benchmarking techniques for optimising control systems are increased throughput and product quality. The book is appropriate for industrial and academic control and process engineers wishing to learn about methods of benchmarking through directed study or self study.

Professor Johnson’s academic career has concentrated on control engineering, theory and applications. He has significant industrial control applications and research experience. He is the author and co-author of books and papers on power generation, wastewater control, power transmission, and control benchmarking. Previous European Union project experience includes the ESPRIT Projects MARIE and IMPROVE and a joint Italian, Spanish and UK THERMIE Project. He has had a number of student projects in the area of assistive technology and has successfully trained over 40 engineers to PhD level in last 20 years. He is joint founding Series Editor to Springer-Verlag-London monograph series Advances in Industrial Control and also of the graduate text series Advanced Textbooks in Control and Signal Processing. He was an Automatica Associate Editor (1985-2002). His most recent textbook is Control Engineering-An Introductory Course, Palgrave Press, ISBN 0-333-77129-X co-authored with colleagues, Dr. Jacqueline Wilkie and Dr. Reza Katebi.

Professor Johnson retired from the University of Strathclyde in December, 2002 and was appointed Professor Emeritus of the University in April, 2003. Professor Johnson is a Member of the IEEE, a Fellow of the I. M. A., a Chartered Mathematician, a member and Director of the charity Deafblind Scotland and a member of the British Retinitis Pigmentosa Society.

Andrzej Ordys is the Manager of the Industrial Control Unit at the University of Strathclyde. He is a highly regarded control engineer having published and contributed to numerous papers and books. His work for Springer includes the previous Advances in Industrial Control monographs: Modelling and Simulation of Power Generation Plants and Optimization of Industrial Processes at Supervisory Level. He is a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, a Chartered Engineer and a member of the Institute of Electricaland Electronic Engineers (USA). He has written papers on benchmarking, modelling and simulation of power systems and on predictive control algorithms with application to power systems.