Process control performance is a cornerstone of operational excellence in the refining, petrochemicals, pulp and paper and the mineral processing industry. In the process industry, operators are responsible for monitoring several hundred or even thousands of control loops. With such a wide span-of-control, operator responsibility forces them to work in an "alarm-driven" mode, principally depending on computerized systems to inform them of problems when or after they occur, with the result that the benefits of basic and advanced control strategies may not be realized. In recognition of these issues, control performance assessment and monitoring applications have become mainstream in these industries and are changing the maintenance methodology surrounding control assets from predictive to condition based. The large numbers of these assets on most sites compared to the number of maintenance and control personnel has made monitoring and diagnosing control problems challenging.
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