To identify and share best practices, manufacturers and suppliers created associations such as ISA, International Society of Automation. ISA is comprised of several committees that focus on various elements of the automation industry including batch processing, the ISA-S88 standard.

The ISA-S88 standard defines best practices for control operations for batch processing plants. The goal of ISA-S88 is to provide standard terminology and consistent sets of concepts and models for batch manufacturing plants and batch control. These concepts and models are aimed at improving communications between all parties involved to:

• Reduce user time to reach full production levels for new products
• Enable vendors to supply appropriate tools for implementing batch control
• Let users better identify their needs
• Make recipe development straightforward enough to be accomplished without the services of a control systems engineer
• Reduce the cost of automating batch processes
• Reduce life-cycle expenses

Within the ISA-S88 standards are:

• An emphasis on good practices for the design and operation of batch manufacturing plants
• The improvement of control capabilities of existing batch manufacturing plants
• The application of best practices regardless of the degree of automation

Over the years, automation suppliers have developed techniques, hardware and definite-purpose software to meet ISA-S88 control standards. Those developments continue with new and innovative tools like S88 Builder to increase flexibility while lowering costs and commissioning time.

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