Regulatory Control Optimization Plant Wide Optimization Case Study

A major goal of every business is to achieve a sustained competitive advantage in the market.
A key advantage for the manufacturing and processing industries is ensuring that the operational performance is continually in the top global rankings for their industry. This will enable them to produce their products to the required quality using the minimum resources and thus ensuring high margins and value leadership.

"We see great value in Osprey helping us improve our control system. After the optimization, we can now push our plant to find the maximum limits of the process. This is especially important for us since this is a new process [Alpha 1] and we are unsure of the real constraints."
Roy Goulder Technology Manager Lucite International (S) Pte. Ltd.

To capture this advantage, all aspects of the operation must be optimized. One area that is often overlooked is the performance of the automated control system. A large investment is made for the process control system at a manufacturing site. To ensure the operation and reliability of the control system, sites generally have established maintenance programs for measurement devices (transmitters et al) and final control elements (valves, etc.). However, the performance of the entire control system including the regulatory controller is often overlooked and only receives attention when the control system fails and causes a large impact on the process, such as out of quality product or plant outages.

If the performance of the entire regulatory control system is not currently being measured and managed appropriately, there is a great potential for achieving significant benefits. Optimization of the regulatory control system is one of the biggest returns on investment plants can execute, since the objective is to make sure the actual equipment that is already owned works at its best. This should be done before any consideration is given to APC and other advanced optimization methods that require a large investment (and also require the regulatory control system to be performing well before achieving any benefits). The main benefit of improving process control performance is to reduce the variability of the process. This will immediately result in a better quality product, more stable operations, lower valve travel and more efficient use of Constraint resources. With this tighter control, management has the Operating Close to the ability to determine Constraint and operate closer to Optimization Improved Control the true constraint Reduced Process Variability Status Quo Poor Control of the process. This may be a specification limit, operating trip limit, maximum throughput or other constraint.

16-Jan-09

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Regulatory Control Optimization Plant Wide Optimization Case Study

Osprey Engineering was engaged by Lucite International to assist in the optimization of their recently commissioned plant in Singapore which is utilizing the new ALPHA processing technology. Ospreys scope of work was to test and analyze all critical regulatory PID controllers, generate optimized tuning parameters, modify / implement new control strategies as required and detail actions the site could implement to further improve control system performance. A process test was conducted by the site operations staff with guidance from an Osprey service engineer for all controllers. A commercially available PID tuning and analysis software was used to model the process and generate the tuning parameters. System simulation studies were also executed on a few processes to further optimize the controller performance. The performance improvement analysis was calculated from 5 second snapshot data (over 20 to 24 hours) exported from the site process data historian comparing the as-found versus the new performance. A total of 97 controllers were tested and evaluated in 15 effort days.

Statistical Results:
Controller Type Flow Level Pressure Temperature Overall Average Tuning Change Factor Quantity 44 23 19 11 97 P 2.54 4.69 7.75 2.80 4.10 I 2.25 2.75 14.56 2.14 4.77 D 0.00 0.00 0.47 2.18 0.34 Average PV Filter 0.43 7.26 3.21 0.00 2.55 Average Performance Improvement Factor PV Range PV Std Dev 4.57 19.20 13.09 9.16 10.23 3.04 9.51 5.64 5.52 5.36 Err Std. Dev 0.03 5.96 5.83 0.68 2.65 OP Trav 117.84 39.17 16.20 0.43 65.96

Average Tuning Change Factor: Multiple of tuning parameter change between the as found and new optimum tuning. A tuning change factor of 5 indicates the tuning parameter was increased or decreased by a factor of 5 (i.e. as found tuning parameter was 1.0, new tuning parameter is 5 or 0.2) Average PV Filter: First order PV filter time constant in seconds implemented for the controller. Only 2 of the 97 controllers had any PV filtering so no change factor could be caluculate for nearly all the controllers studied. Average Performance Improvement Factor: Multiple of performance metric improvement between as found and new performance. A positive performance improvement factor indicates the reduction multiple of the metric (i.e. the PV Range of all flow controllers was, on average, reduced by a factor of 4.57x between the as found and new performance). A negative performance improvement factor indicates the performance metric has increased between the as found and new performance.

Summary of Results:
The overall process variability of the key control variables of the plant was reduced by a factor of 5.36x. This reduction in process variability will allow the plant to operate very close to the true constraint of the process. Significant reduction in controller output and valve travel (65 times lower) was realized through elimination of process oscillations and implementation of PV filters to prevent excessive controller action due to large noise bands. This will extend the physical life of the control devices, reducing maintenance cost and probability of unscheduled downtime events

16-Jan-09

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Regulatory Control Optimization Plant Wide Optimization Case Study

Majority of improvements were realized through optimal PV filters, tuning and controller integration only. For a few cases the following additional strategies were implemented when possible o Addition of pressure / temperature compensation for gas flow controllers. o Reconfiguration of controllers with split range output to eliminate the output gap between final control element switching which caused performance degradation when transitioning between final control elements o Addition of moving average filters to minimize impact of natural oscillation present in the process. The control system performance can be further improved when the site is able to implement the following actions o Maintenance to be completed on equipment of 14 controllers that had transmitter (intermittent reading) or control valves issues (saturation, hysteresis/stiction) o Adaptive tuning to be implemented for split range controllers for each final control element output zone o Model based control (feed forward or smith predictor) to be implemented on several controllers where the deadtime is approaching the time constant of the process.

Lucite International is a global leader in the design, development, and manufacture of acrylic- based products the driving force behind 2 of the worlds best known material brands Lucite and Perspex from Lucite Lucite Internationals proprietary Alpha Technology is a revolutionary, high yield, low cost, two stage process that liberates the MMA industry and provides significant cost savings over the traditional manufacturing method. Developed and piloted over a 12-year period, the Companys first world-scale Alpha plant is in Singapore and was commissioned in 2008.

Osprey Engineering provides world class engineering and consulting services to the process and manufacturing industries. Ospreys core areas of expertise are the automation, control, manufacturing information systems and the optimization fields. Osprey has been helping customers in the Oil & Gas, Chemical, Steel, Power and Manufacturing industries for over 10 years. They have completed works for several companies including Petronas, Shell, BP Chemicals, BASF Petronas Chemicals, Titan Chemicals, Prai Power, and Procter & Gamble.

www.lucitei nternational.com

www.osprey-e nginee ring.com

16-Jan-09

This white paper is brought to you by Osprey Engineering Sdn. Bhd.

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