ControlGlobal.com gets exclusive on ABB's "Benefits of State Based Control" white paper. This paper is being presented at ABB Automation & Power World 2009, March 24 - 26, 2009.
Benefits of State Based Control
A White Paper by David Huffman, ABB INC
State Based Control is a plant automation control design based on the principle that all process facilities operate in recognized, definable Process States that represent a variety of normal and abnormal conditions of the process. State Based Control, implemented with the latest developments in object-based technologies, delivers direct benefits to its adopters in a variety of Operational Excellence categories. It results in productivity increases, higher asset utilization of both people and process, automated responses and recovery for abnormal conditions and provides an environment for knowledge capture directly into the control design.
Process States are characterized by definable differences in processing condition where changes in rates, product grades, or abnormal conditions dictate changes to the automation and control parameters of the process. These include but are not limited to:
- operating conditions of equipment (in/out of service, setpoints, etc.)
- enabled and disabled alarms,
- varying alarm limit values,
- loop tuning for optimum performance,
- interlocking conditions
- operator access to interact with key pieces of equipment
Overall production improvement is created by simple situational optimization. By managing the parameters across Process States, optimized process conditions can be maintained during process conditions considered both normal and abnormal. In traditional designs, changes to these parameters are limited or completely ignored, limiting process optimization to only a single, arbitrary normal condition set.
