Industrial Process Controller Workflow Triggers for Lost Benefit Recovery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Model-based industrial process controllers experience declining benefits over time due to factors like inaccurate models, misconfiguration, and operator actions, leading to significant economic losses, with no seamless mechanism to quantify or resolve these losses across different vendors and versions.
Innovation Solution
A framework that identifies, visualizes, and triggers workflows to address operational issues in model-based controllers, using data analysis and auto-suggested actions to reclaim lost benefits, with a scalable and elastic architecture that can be deployed across multiple sites or in the cloud, providing vendor- and version-neutral solutions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If model-based controllers are used to control industrial processes, then control performance and efficiency are improved, but benefits decline over time due to model inaccuracy, misconfiguration, and operator actions
Solution Approach 1:
The system continuously monitors controller performance metrics and compares them against expected performance thresholds. When degradation is detected, the system provides feedback through alerts and recommendations to operators, enabling them to take corrective actions such as model updates or reconfiguration to restore optimal performance.
Solution Approach 2:
The system proactively identifies performance degradation trends before they result in significant control failures. By analyzing historical performance data and detecting early signs of model drift or configuration issues, the system enables preventive maintenance actions that reclaim benefits before substantial performance loss occurs.
2Difficulty of detecting and measuring
If comprehensive monitoring and analysis systems are implemented to track controller performance, then ability to identify and resolve issues is improved, but system complexity and implementation cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system is designed to be vendor- and version-neutral, capable of monitoring and analyzing performance across different controller manufacturers and software versions through a unified interface. This universal approach consolidates multiple specialized tools into a single platform, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining comprehensive detection capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediate analysis layer between the controller and the operator. This intermediary automatically collects performance data, analyzes trends, and translates complex technical metrics into actionable insights, reducing the burden on operators while maintaining high detection capability.
3Manufacturing precision
If vendor-specific and version-specific solutions are used to address controller issues, then precision of fixes is improved, but adaptability across different vendors and versions deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system maintains a comprehensive database of controller specifications, models, and versions, enabling it to provide vendor-specific recommendations through a universal platform. The system adapts its analysis and recommendations based on the specific controller type while maintaining consistent user interface and deployment architecture across all vendors and versions.
Data Source
AI summary
A method includes obtaining data associated with operation of an industrial process controller and identifying impacts of operational problems of the industrial process controller. The method also includes generating a graphical display for a user, where the graphical display presents one or more recommended actions to reduce or eliminate at least one of the impacts of at least one of the operational problems. The method further includes triggering at least one of the one or more recommended actions based on input from the user. The method could also include executing one or more analytic algorithms to process the obtained data and identify the operational problems of the industrial process controller. Each of the one or more analytic algorithms could be instantiated as a container, and multiple containers could be instantiated and executed as needed. Results of executing the one or more analytic algorithms could be transformed into a standard format.