Control Performance Improvement

Emerson and Puffer-Sweiven Control Performance Discovery Studies are a combination of analysis, consultation, and some critical loop adjustments to optimize the performance of individual control loops and to coordinate the response of all loops in a process unit.

Discovery Studies are offered in three tiers of services available onsite or offsite depending on the service tier: Tier 1 provides a one-day consultation; Tier 2 provides a consultation with more in-depth analysis tailored to the needs of your plant; Tier 3 offers in-depth analysis and some immediate changes to your control system.

Our Control Performance Improvement consultants can quickly identify the cause and solution of loop performance problems such as cycling and slow response. They can also provide immediate recommendations and identify long-term remedies.

Emerson and Puffer-Sweiven consultants can help you determine the causes of and solutions for process upsets, trips, and operator intervention on key control loops. We can help reduce unplanned events, thus lowering maintenance costs.

Control Performance consultants can also diagnose limitations of base-level loops and identify the control loops that will provide additional profit from advanced control.

Once the root cause of loop-performance issues is determined, Emerson and Puffer-Sweiven consultants can help with remediation. Control Performance Improvement Projects are designed to reduce process variability problems that can impact quality, throughput, or raw material and energy consumption.

Emerson and Puffer-Sweiven have experience helping our customers improve their Regulatory control schemes and develop and implementing State Based Control schemes.

Our consultants also provide turn-key services to design, configure, install, and commission a wide variety of Advanced Process Control (APC) schemes.

Emerson and Puffer-Sweiven have the expertise to deliver high quality Control Performance solutions for plant operations with very complex process dynamics. Example projects include, but are not limited to, modifying existing control strategies to include more advanced regulatory schemes such as Feed Forward Control, implementing Model Predictive Control strategies, implementing AspenTech DMCplus and DMC3 technologies and training Neural Network models.

Emerson and Puffer-Sweiven can help customers start their journey in digitally transforming operations by assisting in developing a Procedural Automation Strategy. This includes a philosophy that defines work processes, owners, and indicators from inception through retirement of a process’s automation requirements specific for a customer’s unique organization. SBC utilizes a standard measure to identify and justify automation opportunity that improves safety, reliability, and profitability of operations.

The SBC Assessment is the Pre-FEED phase of a project. This assessment provides the high-level design of the SBC and determines the appropriate level of automation to maximize value.

Captures best practices in operating discipline into the specification for the SBC. Leverage the high-level design from the assessment into detailed specifications that are used in the Control Application phase and as the basis for checkout and FAT.

Using the final, approved specification from the above step, Emerson will conduct the automation system configuration with Customer personnel actively involved in verification and approval of design.

Emerson and Puffer-Sweiven offer service programs that provide periodic reviews of your control performance, including assessing the health and effectiveness of the associated instrumentation and control valves. These programs require periodic review of process data, either with consultant’s onsite or through remotely connected services.

Process variability can have negative impacts on your plant efficiency, throughput, product quality, or raw material, and energy consumption. Our Control Performance Consultants can determine the root cause of loop performance issues, ensuring that unwanted variability will not creep into your process.

APC projects often have a quick payback period but sustaining those benefits over a long period requires regular oversight by a qualified expert. After implementing a new control strategy, best practices recommend periodic reviews to ensure the strategy is performing optimally.

In a typical process plant, almost two-thirds of control loops are underperforming, whether running in manual or exhibiting excessive variability. Through continuous monitoring, Emerson and Puffer-Sweiven can help you recognize when a faulty measurement, defective valve, or poor tuning is disrupting your operational goals.