The Future is Now

By Greg McMillan and Stan Weiner

Greg McMillan and Stan Weiner bring their wits and more than 66 years of process control experience to bear on your questions, comments, and problems. Write to them at controltalk@putman.net.

Stan: Process control has been very good to us. More than the money earned, there was a sense of pioneering advancements in the understanding and implementation of what works best.

Greg: More than any other field, process control is open to innovation because there is no script or guide. Undergraduate programs in process control are rare or non-existent. Industrial short courses and books provide pieces of puzzles that are as diverse as the products in the process industry. When I worked on the initial development of the ISA Certification of Automation Professionals (CAP) program, I was surprised that there was no set of books—including my own—that would develop a new engineer into a proficient practitioner. The books from industry were not written for teaching. Numerical examples and test problems were"missing in action."University textbooks generally focus on the math needed for graduate degrees and research. Some textbooks have provided an overview of instrumentation, valves and control systems, but often the representation is dated and without guidance as to what a process control engineer really needs to know or do on the job.

Stan: Our courses in chemical engineering and physics did little to help us to select, specify, configure, install, checkout, start up and maintain automation systems. In control theory classes, we had perfect measurements and valves, negligible dead time and state space controllers. When these courses did show instrumentation systems, the figures often had pneumatic signals, DP flow meters downstream of control valves, and actuators without positioners—all disasters. 

Greg: Quantum mechanics, the theory of relativity and astrophysics didn't help us much in figuring out why a loop was messed up, although the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-uncertainty/) explained why our management couldn't get a fix on both where we were and what we were doing. We hoped that there was conservation of spin, so that executive decisions in the wrong direction might be resulting in decisions in the right direction somewhere in the universe.

Stan: Talking about being out of touch, why are operator graphics so functionally primitive? How come we don't have 3-D plots of batch, column, fluidized bed, reformer and sheet profiles? Why don't we have dashboards of equipment and process performance? Why no live maintenance records? How come sensor locations and the signals for feedback, feed-forward, cascade and split range control are left to the imagination?

Greg: I know we don't want to clutter the screens, but wouldn't better integration and visualization of data and control system functionality improve the operability and maintainability of plants? Why not an engineering view on the operator console that is an evergreen combo process flow diagram (PFD) and simplified process and instrument diagram (P&ID)? Why not have a drill down to stream info both static and dynamic? Coriolis meters could provide live density, temperature and inferential composition data besides mass flow. Most PFD and P&ID drawings are out of date as soon as the plant starts up.

Stan: This lack of a comprehensive picture of our profession and plant performance is a problem for everyone, especially the new engineer. To get an idea of how a new engineer comes up to speed, Greg interviewed Sarah Tremblay and Ted Stillwell, who have three months and 30+ years of experience, respectively.

Greg: Sarah, what exposure to process control did you had have prior to this job? 

Sarah: Process control was only mentioned in passing in some of my courses in mechanical engineering. We had a lab, but the scenarios were too scripted—no room to explore. I think I would have benefited from a perspective of the role of process control and the types of applications and jobs in the process industry.

Greg: Ted, are there any courses offered at your company?

Ted: We have "lunch and learn" presentations and demos and half-day seminars sponsored by suppliers.

Greg: When I started, I was sent to an eight-week intensive course and lab on instrumentation and control. I was then sent to E&I construction where I was responsible for the installation, checkout, and start-up of automation systems for a half-dozen production units. In between construction assignments I was given the chance to be the lead engineer on a project under the tutelage of Stan. Do you have developmental program for new engineers?

Ted: Companies today don't have the money or time to invest in training programs. Also, projects are quicker and dollar-driven, so you end up working on several at the same time instead of just one big job. Luxuries of the 1970s and 1980s have gone away.

Sarah: An intensive multi-week course would not benefit me much right now. You need enough experience and time on the job to put what you would learn in a course in the proper context.