An investigation of deployment strategies of advanced process control systems

This research is intended for process control practitioners, plant decision-makers and process control technology leaders that are considering implementing Advanced Process Control (APC). An understanding of APC is developed from an introductory level a definition, its purpose and how APC relates to process control and the enterprise. Three types of APC techniques are adopted for elaboration on capabilities and applications. The applicability of the selected APC technologies is investigated based on the type of manufacturing industry. This investigation is conducted as there are varying approaches to the implementation of APC technologies in each of the selected manufacturing sectors. The key challenge is deciding on the best fit process control system. Various industry sectors are explored further to gain an understanding of the inconsistencies in the APC selection approach and to test the proposed decision framework. This research proposes a framework that guides the decision-making process that ranks the anticipated risks to be addressed for the considered APC technique to positively contribute towards the profitability of the enterprise. This framework forms the basis of the deployment strategy for APC. Hypothetical scenarios are defined to test the decision framework and validate its appropriateness. An impression on how various manufacturing sectors perceive process automation is given, together with a process that considers both qualitative and quantitative factors into the strategic decision-making process for the best APC technique.