Education

Update and bump: Here's the recorded video and download file (511Mb):

Here's the associated presentation and download link:

Original post:

ModelingandControl.com's Greg McMillan will be conducting his 8^th demo/seminar (a.k.a. deminar) tomorrow, August 25. The topic will be PID Control of Runaway Processes. It will be on-line and live across the internet at 10:00 am CDT / 15:00 UTC. To attend the event, go to http://bit.ly/JC-LiveMeeting. Use the information below to connect (if you're not using the available computer audio):

• Toll-free: +1 (877) 771-7176
• Toll: +1 (225) 383-1099
• Participant code: 264679

Runaway processes are found in highly exothermic reactors used to produce polymers and specialty chemicals. The chemical reaction rates increase with temperature. Tight control is critical for safety, quality, production rate, and batch cycle time. Tuning these temperature loops with conventional tuning rules can cause excessive oscillations, overshoot, and potential emergency shutdown (ESD) trips.

Other runaway processes include some biological reactions, acids and bases, and axial compressor speed control during surge conditions to name a few.

If you have runaway processes in your plant, you'll want to join us tomorrow and hear Greg share his experiences in how to best address and control these processes.

If you've not attended any of Greg's deminars to this point, we record and archive them for future viewing. Here's the links to the recorded videos and presentations for the deminars to date:

• PID Control of Sampled Measurements | slides
• PID Control of Valve Sticktion and Backlash | slides
• PID Control of Slow Valves and Secondary Loops | slides
• On-line Process Control Lab Access and Use | slides | Process Control Lab website
• PID Tuning for Self Regulating Processes | slides
• PID Tuning for Near Integrating Processes | slides
• PID Control of True Integrating Processes | slides

Update: Here's the video recording (542Mb download) and presentation for this webinar:

Original post: ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan is resuming his demo/seminar (a.k.a. deminar) series tomorrow, August 11, 2010. The subject will be reducing batch cycle time and startup time for true integrating processes through improved PID control. The deminar will begin at 10am CDT / 13:00 UTC.

To attend the event, visit http://bit.ly/JC-LiveMeeting

Use the information below to connect (if you're not using the available computer audio):

• Toll-free: +1 (877) 771-7176
• Toll: +1 (225) 383-1099
• Participant code: 264679

Also, if you haven't already visited Greg's Process Control Lab to try these deminar simulations yourself, give them a try.

One final note... here's a link to Greg's library of past recorded deminars.

Update: Some of the recorded deminars had extremely long load times, so we've reuploaded and encoded the whole series. I've updated the link above to the new recorded deminar library location.

Update 2: Added links for recorded video and presentations.

Wow, August already. For those around Emerson Process Management, it means the Emerson Exchange 2010 Technical Conference is rapidly approaching. This year it will be held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas on September 27 through October 1. If you register on or before August 16 you can save $400 off the full registration price.

Emerson's Terry Blevins and Mark Nixon will be presenting a short course on process control fundamentals at Emerson Exchange, titled Control Loop Foundation - Batch and Continuous Processes. The abstract:

A new book on process control fundamentals will be published by ISA in September, 2010. This book is based on material originally developed for internal Emerson classes. In this short course the book authors present key areas of the book and demonstrate web base exercises that accompany the book.

I checked and saw a detailed description of the book is available on the ISA website. Mark and Terry describe the book's intended audience:

It is assumed that the reader may not have worked in a process plant environment and may be unfamiliar with the field devices and control systems. Much of the material on the practical aspects of control design and process applications is based on the authors personal experience gained in working with process control systems. Thus, the book is written to act as a guide for engineers, managers, technicians, and others that are new to process control or experienced control engineers who are unfamiliar with multi-loop control techniques.

I was able to get my hands on an advanced copy of their Emerson Exchange short course. It steps through an introduction that covers measurement devices, analyzers, final elements, field wiring and communications, control strategy documentation, operator graphics and metrics, and process characterization.

After the introduction, Terry and Mark provide a closer look at control objectives. These include single loop control, tuning and loop performance, multi-loop control, model predictive control, and process modeling. They highlight specific applications in continuous, combustion, and distillation control. Overall, the short course gives a basic overview of process control that is covered in greater depth in the book.

If you or some of your colleagues are new to process control, this short course is an opportunity to hear first hand and ask questions from two, highly experienced individuals. Terry notes that seating is expected to be limited so you'll want to get there early. They'll also have a drawing for a few books that will be hot off the presses.

I hope this provides another reason to come to the Emerson Exchange. Terry, Mark, and I look forward to seeing you there!

Update and bump: Here's the recorded version of today's Tuning for Near-Integrating Processes deminar (and download link to 375Mb file).

Original post: Recent ISA Life Achievement Award honoree Greg McMillan will present his next live demo/seminar (a.k.a. deminar) tomorrow, June 23, 2010 at 10am CDT / 13:00 UTC. He shares his experience in PID Tuning for Near-Integrating Processes.

To attend the event, go to http://bit.ly/JC-LiveMeeting. Use the information below to connect (if you're not using the available computer audio):

• Toll-free: +1 (877) 771-7176
• Toll: +1 (225) 383-1099
• Participant code: 264679

Here's an advanced copy of the presentation and I'll update the post once the recorded version becomes available.

If you haven't seen any of Greg's deminars, here are the ones recorded and available on demand:

• PID Control of Sampled Measurements (presentation only)
• PID Control of Valve Sticktion and Backlash (presentation only)
• PID Control of Slow Valves and Secondary Loops (presentation only)
• Web Lab Access and Use Instructions (presentation only)
• PID Tuning for Self-Regulating Processes (presentation only)

Also, make sure to visit Greg's Process Control Lab and try some of the control simulations that he discusses in the deminar series. You may soon be an award-winning expert too!

We look forward to having you join us tomorrow.

Update: I've updated the embedded video to the new recorded deminar location in order to improve load-time performance.

Here's a quick Friday post to wish hearty congratulations to Greg McMillan who shares his process control expertise over on the ModelingAndControl.com blog each week. I just saw the news in the Sound Off! blog post, ISA Announces This Year's Honors and Awards Recipients.

The Sound Off! post reports:

Life Achievement Award
To recognize individuals with a history of sustained dedication to the instrumentation, systems, and automation community.

Gregory K. McMillan
CDI - Process & Industrial, Austin, TX, USA

Citation: In recognition of a 40 year of innovation in process control technology through invention, publication of articles, papers and books, as well as teaching the application of control theory.

Greg is prolific for his contributions to the advancement of the DeltaV system, his weekly blog posts at ModelingAndControl.com, his on-line demo/seminar (a.k.a. deminar) series, his numerous process control books both available for sale and for free, his on-line Process Control Lab site, his and Stan Weiner's ControlTalk column for Control magazine, papers and articles too numerous to mention, and much more I'm sure!

If this post comes off sounding like I'm a huge fan of Greg, it's because I am. I've known Greg for many years, and gotten to know him much more since we've been doing this deminar series over the last couple of months.

He's the best example I know of trying to convince all the great people in our world of process automation to share their expertise and wisdom with the world. If you do, your peers just might recognize you too!

MP3 | iTunes

Update and bump: Here's a link to watch the recorded video or to download the 486Mb .wmv file to your PC.

Update 2: Here's Greg's presentation and download link.

Original post

This Wednesday is Greg McMillan's next deminar (demo/seminar.) The topic is PID Tuning for Self-Regulating Processes--How to Compensate for Nonlinearities in Flow, Liquid Pressure, and Heat Exchanger Loops. It will begin at 10:00 am CDT (13:00 UTC).

You can join us by visiting http://bit.ly/JC-LiveMeeting/. Audio is included in the Live Meeting session. Should you have any difficulties with the audio portion of the deminar, it is also available by phone:

• Toll-free: +1 (877) 771-7176
• Toll: +1 (225) 383-1099
• Participant code: 264679

Greg's Process Control Lab site is now live where you can go and try some of the PID control techniques that he teaches in these deminar series.

The complete deminar series to date has also been recorded and available on demand.

We hope you'll join us on Wednesday! If you can't make it live, we'll update the post once the deminar has been uploaded.

Update: To address video load-time issues, I've updated the post to embed the recorded video from the new recorded deminar library.

Emerson's Deji Chen and Mark Nixon have written a recently published book, WirelessHART™ - Real-Time Mesh Network for Industrial Automation. They teamed with University of Texas at Austin professor, Aloysius Mok to write a comprehensive work on this global wireless standard (IEC 62591) for the process industries. Professor Mok is known for his research in real-time embedded systems and was a past chairman of the Technical Committee on Real-Time Systems of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Mark and Deji are key members of the DeltaV technology team.

I caught up with Deji to discuss the book. The first part of the book offers an overview of the WirelessHART standard. It describes the physical layer, data link layer, network and transport layers, application layer, and the architecture, security, and scheduling functions in a WirelessHART network.

If you are a technologist with one of the automation suppliers and seeking to add WirelessHART capabilities to your products, the book goes into depth to describe the inner workings of the WirelessHART technology. For example, in the physical layer, it highlights maximum bandwidth, communications packet length and its impact on reliability, channel hopping, and available diagnostics. There is similar detail with respect to the other layers in the communications stack.

Process automation professionals interested in how best to apply WirelessHART in their plant will find part III of the book, WirelessHART in Practice, to be beneficial. The HART Communication Foundation has operated a rigorous quality assurance program since 1995 for HART devices and now WirelessHART devices. The book describes some of the test and diagnostic tools used to assure compliance with the standard.

The deployment recommendations in chapter 14 offer guidance in the design of a wireless field network. One example is the number of WirelessHART field devices per access point. The number is a function of the average update rate. If all the devices update once per second, then 25 devices can be connected. If the average update rate is once per 10 seconds (or 6 per minute), then 250 devices can be wirelessly connected to the access point. Other formulas help process automation professionals calculate bandwidth consumed. The formulas are very conservative to help ensure successful installations.

The self-organizing nature of the WirelessHART communications standard means that detailed site surveys are not required. This is one of its inherent advantages over line-of-sight and point-to-point wireless network technologies. This self-organizing mesh also means that expanding the network is much easier than other approaches. As the authors note, the WirelessHART working group used a "keep-it-simple" philosophy in all phases from configuration to installation, support, and maintenance.

The authors give installation guidance such as deploying the gateway in the center of a network for a small wireless network. This gateway is what connects the WirelessHART network with the automation system or controller.

Looking forward, the authors describe the challenges of control over wireless networks and how PID control algorithms must change to accommodate the instances where lost communications may occur. Chapter 16 highlights the basis for these changes and how control systems such as the DeltaV system accommodate control over WirelessHART networks.

If you'd like a deeper understanding of this important global standard, you'll find this book to be an important addition in your library of learning.

MP3 | iTunes

Update and bump: Here's the link to the recorded version of today's deminar (download 419Mb):

This Thursday marks the next edition of ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan's continuing Deminar (demo/seminar) series on PID control. Greg will be showing the new, On-line Process Control Lab with Access and Use Instructions. In a recent post, he affectionately subtitles this session, "How to Use Free Online Process Control Labs for Fun and Profit and Become Famous by Friday or at Least Saturday."

Update 2: Here's the presentation and download:

This event is different from Greg's prior ones. He's been working with the Mynah Technologies team to ready virtual DeltaV systems for you to get hands on experience with his labs in a virtual plant setting. There's nothing better than hands-on learning.

The deminar will be at 1pm U.S. CDT (18:00 UTC) on Thursday May 27. You can join us by visiting http://bit.ly/JC-LiveMeeting/. Audio is included in the Live Meeting session. Should you have any difficulties with the audio portion of the deminar, it is also available by phone:

• Toll-free: +1 (877) 771-7176
• Toll: +1 (225) 383-1099
• Participant code: 264679

If you haven't already seen any of Greg's first three deminars, they have been recorded, archived, and are available on demand:

• PID Control of Sampled Measurements (download | PPT presentation)
• PID Control of Valve Sticktion and Backlash (download | PPT presentation)
• PID Control of Slow Valves and Secondary Loops (download | PPT presentation)

Greg has been sharing his vast knowledge of process control in this Deminar series. If you learn all that he shares, I have no doubt you'll pick up on his prolific author ways and begin to share your wisdom with fellow automation professionals around the globe!

MP3 | iTunes

Update: Due to long recorded video load times, I've updated the post to embed the video from the new recorded deminar video library.

This Wednesday, May 12, 2010, is the third in our series of deminars (demo/seminar) with ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan. Greg's topic this week is PID Control of Slow Valves and Secondary Loops. The deminar will be at 1pm U.S. CDT (18:00 UTC.)

You can join us by visiting http://bit.ly/JC-LiveMeeting/ . Audio is included in the Live Meeting session. Should you have any difficulties with the audio portion of the deminar, it is also available by phone:

• Toll-free: +1 (877) 771-7176
• Toll: +1 (225) 383-1099
• Participant code: 264679

If you haven't already seen either of Greg's first two deminars, they have been recorded, archived, and are available on demand. The first one was PID Control of Sampled Measurements and the second one was PID Control of Valve Sticktion and Backlash. The presentations are also available in SlideShare for viewing online and downloading.

Greg is on a mission to share his process control wisdom collected over the years as a Senior Fellow for Monsanto and Solutia as well as an ISA Fellow. He's written numerous books, many of which are now freely available as e-Books on his ModelingAndControl.com blog.

We hope you'll join us, and share this upcoming event with your friends and peers. Greg enjoys questions, so bring those ones about your slow valves and secondary loops that might benefit from Greg's experience.

We'll see you Wednesday!

Update: Here's a link to the recorded version in full size, a download link if you want to save a local copy of the WMV file on your PC (636Mb), and an embedded, reduced size recording:

Here's the presentation for viewing or download:

Update 2: I've added a download link for the 636Mb zipped video file.

Update 3: The original recording had audio/video sync issues, so we've updated the file and download. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Update 4: Due to load-time performance issues, I've embedded the recorded video from the new recorded deminar video library.

In my email this morning was the monthly Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) digest. It's one of many ISA email discussion lists. Emerson's Jonas Berge is the driving force behind the EDDL educational information that comes out in this email list and on the EDDL.org website.

One of the items in the email was a mention of an updated section to the EDDL website, Intelligent Device Management. I took a closer look at one of the sections in this category, Calibration Trim. Here are a few points I gleaned from the page and one of the linked whitepapers, Intelligent Device Management: Calibration.

Process manufacturing facilities have hundreds to thousands of field devices including measurement instrumentation, analyzers, and final control elements such as valve positioners. It's quite a bit of work to setup & configure, calibrate, and perform ongoing troubleshooting and maintenance tasks on all of these devices.

Technology has helped as these field devices have incorporated microprocessors and digital communications protocols such as HART, Foundation fieldbus, and Profibus to connect these devices with asset management and process automation systems. These technologies have made centralized management of all these devices possible.

International standard EDDL (IEC 61804-3) provides a common language for device graphics and procedural wizards to provide a common user experience into these devices from software such as the AMS Device Manager and handheld devices such as the 475 Field Communicator across these various digital communication protocols.

I was casually familiar with device calibration trim, but the whitepaper helped to describe its components: sensor trim, range setting, and current trim. Sensor trim addresses drift which may occur in the transmitter's sensing device--although modern transmitters are extremely stable over time. An accurate physical input (pressure, level, temperature, etc.) is applied to the sensor. From a handheld device or software screen, the zero, lower, and upper sensor trims can be set.

For HART devices that have a hybrid analog and digital signal, the range setting translates into the analog 4-20mA current range. For instance, a pressure transmitter that is ranged from 0-1000psig has the 4mA output when the sensor measures 0psig and 20mA when the sensor measures 1000psig. The span of the transmitter is 1000psig. For purely digital protocols such as Foundation fieldbus and Profibus, the range is set in the controller. The whitepaper mentions differential pressure (DP) flow and level as an exception.

Current trim is limited to HART devices with their 4-20mA current signals. Current trim adjustments can be performed in the very rare case where the output current circuitry within a transmitter drifts.

EDDL wizards simplify the calibration trim process. Calibration tasks are guided by wizards to perform: sensor zero trim, sensor lower trim, sensor upper trim, lower range value set, upper range value set. For HART devices, 4mA current trim and 20mA current trim wizards assist in the calibration process. The wizards reduce opportunities for technician error and help enforce consistency.

The EDDL standard also supports instructional and procedural documentation, historical device audit trails, and scheduled maintenance tasks. Given the hundreds to thousands of field devices within a typical plant, this common approach from EDDL helps to simplify the process from setup and calibration through lifecycle maintenance.

MP3 | iTunes

Today is ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan's second "deminar" (demo/seminar) on the topic, PID Control of Valve Sticktion and Backlash. It will be a 1pm U.S. Central Daylight time (UTC-5). If you missed the first one, PID Control of Sampled Measurements, a recorded video and presentation are archived away for watching at your convenience.

Join us at: http://bit.ly/JC-LiveMeeting.

Today's session will stream audio, but should you have any problems with the audio, you can call in at:

• Toll-free: +1 (877) 771-7176
• Toll: +1 (225) 383-1099
• Participant code: 264679

Here are the upcoming deminars with links to calendar entries for future deminars:

• PID Control of Slow Valves and Secondary Loops - May 12, Wed 1:00 CDT
• Web Lab Access and Use Instructions - May 27, Thurs* 1:00 CDT
  *Thursday date is to avoid conflict with the World Batch Forum
• PID Tuning for Self-Regulating Processes - June 9, Wed 1:00 CDT
• PID Tuning for Integrating Processes - June 23, Wed 1:00 CDT
• PID Tuning for Runaway Processes - July 14, Wed 1:00 CDT
• PID Tuning for Split Ranged Valves -- July 21, Wed 1:00 CDT

Later today or by tomorrow at the latest, I'll update the post with the recorded video and presentation. Greg and I hope you can join us!

Update: Here's a link to the live video recording and download link if you want to save a local copy of the WMV file on your PC (524Mb):

I'll update again and add the slides after Greg make a few tweaks to them.

Update2: Here's the presentation slides and the download link:

After viewing, we'd really appreciate your feedback to our 1 question/comment survey to help better calibrate future deminars. Thank you!

Update 3: Due to load-time issues, I've updated the post to embed the recorded video from the new deminar recorded video library.

You know how some of those new, catchy phrases are born of mistakes? So it is with today's "deminar" featuring Greg McMillan. We did a practice session yesterday to see if we could minimize the issues that are often associated with new ventures.

Greg accidentally combined the words "demo" and "seminar" and called it a "deminar". Deb Franke, Greg, and I all agreed this new word was rather catchy, so deminar it is.

Today's deminar, PID Control of Sampled Measurements, will begin at 1pm U.S. Central Daylight Time (UTC - 5). Here's how to join us for the live session:
http://bit.ly/JC-LiveMeeting.

The session will stream audio, but should you have any problems with the audio, you can call in at:

• Toll-free: +1 (877) 771-7176
• Toll: +1 (225) 383-1099
• Participant code: 264679

I'll update this post with a recording of the session and link to the presentation when I have them available.

Update: Here's a link to the recorded deminar (download-468Mb):

We'd really appreciate it if you could take our one-minute survey to help us improve future Deminars. Thanks!

Update: Due to load-time issues, I've updated the embedded video to the latest version from our new recorded deminar video library.

We're launching a new experiment in our world of process automation. I'm teaming up with process automation hall of famer, Greg McMillan, as he launches a series of live seminars and demos over the coming months. Greg has been sharing his process control and process modeling wisdom for years over at the ModelingAndControl.com blog. He's wanted to do more to pass along the skills required to be a good process automation engineer.

In his post today, he recounts how the introduction of a "virtual plant" to junior and senior chemical engineering students at Washington University in St. Louis:

...for a weekly lab of hands-on learning, the attitude shifted from annoyance to enthusiasm.

Several of his students went on into careers in process control. Realizing this impact led to Greg's thoughts in an American Control Conference (ACC) 2009 paper, Bridging the Gap between Universities and Industry.

Building on the ideas expressed in that paper, we'll be conducting a series of live seminars/demos. Greg will make on-line labs and this self-learning experience available to process automation professionals around this globe. These events will be freely available and open to all. Knowing that it's impossible to find a convenient time for everyone, the Live Meeting sessions will be recorded and made available on our respective blogs.

Greg's role will be the teacher, and mine will be to provide technical assistance, field questions for Greg, and help bring visibility to these sessions, through many of the social media channels. Deb Franke is also joining us to help Greg with his content and flow and me with the production.

The first seminar will kick off Wednesday of this week--April 7, 2010--at 1pm CDT (UTC-5). The topic will be PID Control of Sampled Measurements. The target time will be an hour, but we'll go as long as the questions keep coming.

Here's the preliminary schedule for the rest of the known events at this point:

• PID Control of Valve Sticktion and Backlash - April 21, Wed 1:00 CDT
• PID Control of Slow Valves and Secondary Loops - May 12, Wed 1:00 CDT
• Web Lab Access and Use Instructions - May 27, Thurs* 1:00 CDT
  *Thursday date is to avoid conflict with the World Batch Forum
• PID Tuning for Self-Regulating Processes - June 9, Wed 1:00 CDT
• PID Tuning for Integrating Processes - June 23, Wed 1:00 CDT
• PID Tuning for Runaway Processes - July 14, Wed 1:00 CDT
• PID Tuning for Split Ranged Valves -- July 21, Wed 1:00 CDT

In his post, Greg describes the on-line lab component he hopes to introduce in the May 27 seminar:

...make labs as a self-learning experience available over the web with the idea that an employee could spend a few hours a month at a convenient time (e.g. lunch and learn) trying out the latest in PID control capability for various process and automation system designs and objectives. These labs provide a chance to find process control improvements by setting up scenarios that are of particular interest. Since the user interface employ operator graphics, knowledge of the particular DCS is not required. The capture of the last and best scores in terms of key performance variables (KPI) should help promote recognition and competitiveness for finding the best solutions.

As with any new endeavor, we appreciate your patience as we work through the kinks. From some of our early testing, you'll want to connect in with a monitor with at least 1280x800 resolution or the image will have scroll bars. Lower resolutions still work, but are not optimum.

To attend the any or all of these events, go to http://bit.ly/JC-LiveMeeting. If you've not used Live Meeting before, you can go here to install the Live Meeting client on your PC, MAC, or Linux box.

Audio streams with the seminars, but should you encounter any difficulties, here's how to connect by phone:

• Toll-free: +1 (877) 771-7176
• Toll: +1 (225) 383-1099
• Participant code: 264679

We hope you'll join our maiden voyage on Wednesday or catch the recorded episode once it's posted.

Let's close this week with a few important announcements. The first is that abstracts for the September 27 - October 1, 2010 Emerson Exchange meeting in San Antonio, Texas are due this coming Monday, March 15. In spite of my last-minute ways, I have two workshops ready to submit.

The first is with Deb Franke, with whom I've teamed up over the last three years:

• 2007 - Getting the Most Value from the Internet: How New Web 2.0 Tools and Techniques Can Help You Innovate
• 2008 - Feeding That Inner Geek While Sharing Your Expertise and Interests
• 2009 - Gamechangers: How to Thrive in Chaos

This year we want to be able to answer that hard-hitting question about social media, "What's in it for me?" If the Emerson Exchange board selects our workshop among all those submitted, we'll present our six most persuasive arguments to answer this question.

The second workshop will also be about social media, but look at it from a customer's perspective of the opportunities to create better products and technologies through an on-line dialog between customers and Emerson. The workshop will also look at some of the existing communities where this collaboration occurs, such as the Micro Motion Community and the DeltaV LinkedIn group. These ideas build upon the article, Online collaboration: A win for all of us, by Micro Motion president, Tom Moser.

Fingers crossed that one or both will be accepted!

The other important announcement is that ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan continues his quest to share his vast knowledge of process control and modeling before he decides to fully kick back and retire. If you're near St. Louis or Kansas City, you'll not want to miss:

• ISA St. Louis, Wednesday March 17 - pH Measurement
• Experitec Kansas City Technology Seminar Open House, Friday March 26 - Advances in measurement, valves, and control can make a dramatic difference in important applications such as bioreactor, compressor, exothermic reactor, and neutralizer control.

Greg, Deb, and I are discussing other ways we can help share Greg's wisdom further and wider. All I can say is, stay tuned!

MP3 | iTunes

Update: I sent a note to Greg about mentioning our musings and he let me know he's also submitting an abstract for an "Interactive Exploration of Process Control Improvement" that provides some "hands on" enjoyment. This is probably one you'll want to include on list to see!

ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan was giving his pH Control Solutions webcast a dry run yesterday and it was an opportunity I didn't want miss. I always learn something when I'm around Greg. Greg will be conducting this live ISA web seminar on pH Control tomorrow, March 10, 2010 at 2-3:30pm U.S. Eastern (GMT -5) time. It's not free, so visit the ISA webinar registration page to sign up.

It's a chance to listen to Greg and ask questions about challenges and solutions to your toughest pH Measurement and Control solutions. He derived some of his thoughts from his book Advanced pH Measurement and Control, 3rd Edition.

Those that know Greg know he loves his Top Ten, David Letterman-style lists. In this presentation, he'll share his top ten signs of a rough pH startup. I'll share one of them. You know you've got a rough pH startup when the plant manager leaves the country.

pH poses measurement challenges in sensitivity and rangeability like no other. Normally, an instrument engineer considers a turndown ratio or rangeability of 100 to 1 as quite large. Try 100,000,000,000,000 to 1 for a pH sensor measuring a pH 0 (1.0 hydrogen ion/0.00000000000001 Hydroxyl ion concentration) to pH 14 (0.00000000000001 hydrogen ion/1.0 Hydroxyl ion concentration). It was enough zeros that I was losing count, so I cut and pasted from Greg's presentation!

Another big challenge is the non-linear, s-shaped titration curves (pH versus reagent/influent ratio). If you follow the link for titration curves to the Wikipedia link, you'll see a picture of this non-linear curve. Greg noted that the steep vertical part is deceiving. As you zoom in it's actually another titration curve. As such, it's critical to get numerical values and a sufficient number of data points around the setpoint. Greg describes various titration curve scenarios including weak acid/strong base, weak acid/weak base, multiple weak acids/weak bases, and strong acids/weak bases.

Greg describes how large savings in reagent is possible for the flat parts of the titration curves. pH sensor drift can have a large impact on the reagent calculations and Greg discusses the advantages of doing Feedforward flow control on the ratio of reagent to influent flow. The Feedforward control requires pH feedback correction unless the setpoint is in the flat part of the titration curve. He recommends using Coriolis mass flow meters and having constant influent and reagent concentrations.

He covers much more from the construction and operation of double-junction combination pH electrodes to the need for three pH probes and a mid-select algorithm to handle the natural drift in pH measurements. He offers many pH control strategy examples such as cascade, full throttle batch, linear reagent demand batch to name a few.

If you are fighting pH measurement and control issues at your plant, it may be worth the fee and time to hear Greg and have the opportunity to ask your questions of him directly.

MP3 | iTunes

A few months ago, I shared some news of virtual classroom courses begun by the Emerson Educational Services team. This effort is being led here in Austin, Texas by Jim Siemers. I asked Jim for an update on how things are going with these virtual classes since the first one in early November 2009.

Jim noted that eight of these virtual, across-the-internet classes have been held to date. Five of the Ed Center instructors have delivered these courses. Jim described what sorts of courses were best suited for a virtual classroom approach:

Courses that we deliver virtually are software-oriented (hardware and troubleshooting are tough as you physically have to have the equipment in front of you). This method of learning is quickly catching on and we now have about two classes per month being scheduled (both open enrollment as well as dedicated for a given site).

How it works is that an education center instructor leads the virtual classroom during live sessions. Students can see and talk with the instructor through their PCs. From their office or home, students connect into education center systems running DeltaV, Syncade, and/or Mimic software. Instructors can take control of these remote sessions to help students during the learning process.

By being conducted live across the internet, the geographic spread of students can be much greater. Jim describes a Mimic simulation course conducted last week for 9 students across many countries in Europe. And Jeff Hackney, whom you may recall from earlier posts, noted that a Syncade course begins this week for students in South Korea.

No one expects these courses to be as good as in-person classroom learning, but Jim did share some student feedback with me. Most has been very positive and often exceeds expectations. I think many folks (mine included) perceptions have been built on "canned training" courses that one might do for defensive driving or mandatory HR training. A live instructor changes the equation since you have the opportunity to ask questions and clarify what doesn't make sense.

Proof that this virtual classroom training is catching on is the growth in the number of courses being offered. There are now ten DeltaV and DeltaV SIS classes, five Syncade classes, and a Mimic class available.

As process manufacturers continue to try to control costs in these economic times and to restrict travel budgets, virtual classroom learning may be a trend that continues to grow.

MP3 | iTunes

Since it's Mardi Gras in New Orleans today, I'll do a rare, same-day post. This year is an extra big year with the New Orleans Saints football team bringing the Super Bowl trophy home to the Crescent City. As a former resident back in the 1980s, I'm obliged to bring a bit of the sounds of Mardi Gras to my office by streaming MardiGrasMusicRadio.com.

The post can't wait because I'd lose the first paragraph if I wait another day and also ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan will be presenting in two short weeks at the ISA New Orleans chapter. Greg is calling his two-day series of presentations, March 3 and 4, Exceptional Process Control Opportunities - An Interactive Exploration of Process Control Improvements. He described what he plans to share in a post, Exceptional Opportunities in Process Control - Virtual Plants.

There are only 30-available slots so you'll want to visit their event page for costs ($400 ISA members/$500 non-members), how to enroll, location, etc.

I'll highlight the sections Greg will be presenting over the two days. The sessions begin at 8am on March 3^rd with improving process dynamics by considering process responses, sample times, and ultimate loop performance limits. Following will be a session on improving controller tuning by delving into controller modes, options, structure, tuning, and loop performance practical limits.

Greg continues around the control loop to next look at control valves and their considerations including slewing rate, backlash, stick-slip, installed characteristics, and rangeability. He next will move on the measurement devices and their considerations such as accuracy, noise, response, turndown, and measurement types--flow, pressure, level, temperature, and pH.

Next comes resting your brains and enjoying an evening in New Orleans. The sessions resume at 8am on March 4^th with a look at improving common loops--flow, pressure, level, temperature, pH, and composition.

Greg wraps up the two days showing ways to improve neutralizer, reactor, and evaporator control. Greg notes that each attendee will have access to a virtual plant for hands-on learning and interactive exploration of process control improvements and a copy of his ISA book Essentials of Modern Measurements and Final Elements - a Guide to Design, Configuration, Installation, and Maintenance.

If you're in New Orleans--or need a good excuse to be there--here's your opportunity. And knowing Greg as I do, you'll learn quite a bit.

Being lousy at secrets, I thought I'd share some news in an email from ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan. He's just completed a book, Essentials of Modern Measurements and Final Elements for the Process Industry: A Guide to Design, Configuration, Installation, and Maintenance. It's a collaborative effort with several of the Emerson measurement, final element, automation systems, and safety instrumented systems experts.

Here's a few that I featured on this blog with links to their posts including:

• Mike Boudreaux
• Jim Gray
• Mark Nixon
• Sarah Parker
• Bill Zhou

On the ISA book web site, Greg describes it:

Advances in sensor technology and in digital positioner and variable speed drive algorithms, combined with smart features, offer a step change in the performance of modern measurement instruments and final elements. The installed accuracy of many smart instruments has increased by an order of magnitude. There has been a correspondingly dramatic reduction in the drift of transmitters and a similar improvement in the resolution of control valves.

This comprehensive resource aims to increase awareness of the opportunities afforded by modern measurement instruments and final elements, and to show how to get maximum benefit from the revolution in smart technologies. It builds an understanding of the fundamental aspects of measurements, measurement instruments, and final elements for applications in the process industry. The terminology and ideas presented provide a firm foundation for subsequent chapters that focus on what is needed for lowest life-cycle cost and best automation system performance. The last chapter provides a comprehensive exploration of the technology that supports the rapidly expanding opportunities of WirelessHART instrumentation.

The book is written for students or those new to instrumentation and offers guidance and insights for the more experienced folks among us.

Greg notes that the book is done except for the final reviews of copyediting and layout. The ISA book site has it available for order now, but currently lists October 30 as the in-stock date.

If you're unfamiliar with Greg's past works, he has many of them freely available as eBooks.

Update and bump: I wanted to let everyone know that this book is now printed. I know this because I'm holding one in my hands. It's available for order in the ISA Bookstore but not yet stocked in Amazon.com.

Update 2: ControlGlobal.com's Sound Off! blog gives Greg and team's book 4.5 out of 5 stars.

A few days ago, I saw this Twitter tweet from Emerson's Jeff Hackney:

Train fm home - Emrsn Virtual Training classes for MiMiC V3 (Dec 1, 09) and DeltaV 7009 (Nov 2, 09) http://tiny.cc/Emerson_VLearning

Jeff is part of the Emerson Educational Services team and I was curious to find out more about this virtual training. I discovered what makes this different from traditional e-Learning sessions is the live instruction across the internet as well as remote access to the training equipment. The instructors are based here in Austin, Texas and deliver classes at scheduled times--11/2 and 12/1 as Jeff notes in his tweet. The virtual training course provides internet access to classroom-based equipment such as DeltaV systems and MiMiC simulation software.

One of the barriers in these economic times to taking training courses is the travel and living costs for course. Or, the travel and living costs of the instructor(s) plus the equipment shipping costs for training at a process manufacturer's site.

The first course offered, DeltaV 7009V on November 2, is the virtual training version of the DeltaV Implementation I course, which:

...covers a complete DeltaV system implementation. Upon completion of this course the student will be able to define system capabilities, define nodes, configure continuous and sequential control strategies, operate the system and define users and security.

On Martin Berutti's blog on the Mynah website, he wrote about the December 1 virtual training course for MiMiC:

We strongly recommend this course and are very excited about the new Simulation with MiMiC V-Learning school offered by Emerson Educational Services. MiMiC Simulation Software for DeltaV Testing and Operator Training is a proven technology for saving time and money on DeltaV projects. The Simulation with MiMiC school offers a step-by-step approach to using MiMiC on capital projects or OpEx initiatives. Troy Nelson is an excellent, professional instructor with a deep, practical knowledge of MiMiC and dynamic simulation.

It will be interesting to see the initial feedback from both the DeltaV 7009V and MiMiC courses in having virtual access to the Educational Services instructors and training equipment.

MP3 | iTunes

ModelingAndControl.com's and Emerson technologist, Greg McMillan, will be presenting tomorrow at the ISA's Boston section. His presentation, Exceptional Process Control Opportunities describes how advances in measurements, valves, and control can make a dramatic difference in important applications such as bioreactor, compressor, exothermic reactor, and neutralizer control. For those that can join this event, Greg has promised:

...giving out 10 free copies of my book The Funnier Side of Retirement for Engineers and People of the Technical Persuasion to balance out the serious stuff.

I asked Greg if I could upload his presentation to SlideShare.net, so that I could embed it here and share it with all of you. He graciously agreed. I'm also hoping social media maven, domesticatingIT blogger, and ISA Boston section president, Jon DiPietro, might have Greg's words recorded so we can turn the presentation into a slidecast.

Some of the wide-ranging ground Greg covers in this presentation includes wireless measurement and control, sample time concepts, integrating processes such as batch processes, controller tuning, precision control valves for pH control, expertise retention and development, and open loop backup such as compressor surge and U.S. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) pH.

Greg also promises future blog posts for a whole lot of items he's not able to cover including batch profile controls, adaptive feedback control and linearization, adaptive FeedForward control and linearization, full throttle set point response for batch and startup, controller output overdrive, dynamic reset limit, fast and intermittent disturbances and discontinuities, integration of loop, process, and maintenance data, root cause analysis, data visualization, virtual tool for learning and exploring opportunities, peak control. If you have interest in any of these topics you'll want to subscribe to the blog's RSS feed, if you're not already subscribed.

Greg, being a prolific author extraordinaire, also points to a soon-to-be released work, Essentials of Modern Measurements and Final Elements in the Process Industry. He is donating the royalties from this book to the University of Texas Research Campus for Energy and Environmental Resources for development of wireless instrumentation and control.

If you're in the New England-area tomorrow, here's the event page to find out more details. If you're not, look at the embedded presentation and see some of the wisdom Greg shares, particularly in the slide 22: Wireless PID Control Conclusions, slide 24: Sample Time Guideline Notes, slide 33: Integrating and Runaway Process Tuning, and slide 45: Best Practices to Improve Valve Performance.

Update and bump: I sat down with Greg on Friday and recorded an audio track of his presentation and synched it with the presentation to create a Slidecast.

Check out Greg's findings beginning at slide 14 on how the the behavior of wireless PID control had less oscillations to wired PID control. It was somewhat of a surprising finding.

I received an email from one of my friends on the Emerson Process Management Korean team. We featured some of their work with a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) projects presentation by general manager, Patrick Deruytter, in an earlier post.

The project execution and services team has been quite busy executing mega-sized projects and was recently named a Center of Excellence for Process Automation by the Emerson Asia-Pacific Region staff.

Some of the team's recently completed mega projects include:

• PTT Aromatics and Refining Public Company Limited, the largest aromatics producer in Southeast Asia
• Middle East Oil & Gas facilities modernization project with a South Korean contractor
• Korean Polysilicon solar cell manufacturing process
• Middle East Ethyleneamines production process

The Korean office has 2500 sq. meters (27000 sq. feet) and a team of approximately 200 engineers and PMI-certified project managers working on process automation systems-related projects. They performed a quarter-million project engineering hours over the last year. Given the scope and complexity of most mega-sized projects, the Korean team works with engineers from many world areas executing these projects.

Because of these increasing numbers of projects, a new training center in Seongnam-city provides process automation professionals with certified classes in process control systems, analytical measurement devices, and asset optimization.

I share all this with you, because I have a fondness not only for the increasingly significant projects they do, but also for the innovative spirit that Patrick helps foster. The team established the first non-English Emerson blog of which I'm aware. Check out the Emerson Korea blog. It even contains selected posts from this blog translated into Korean. Here are some pictures on the blog from the award ceremony recognizing their work.

Congratulations to the Korean team and keep leading the way on your projects and innovation efforts!

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Emerson's indefatigable Jonas Berge shared with the ISA EDDL list today that ISA has upgraded its email list server software. You may recall Jonas from his leadership on the electronic device description language (EDDL) web site and in many posts here on this blog. For those not already familiar with this device description language standard, it provides a common way for automation suppliers to describe the information inside their intelligent field devices. Information such as:

...function blocks, device parameters, calibration procedures, menu structures, and presentation of diagnostics.

With field device suppliers having a standard way to describe this data, it provides the suppliers of handheld devices, asset management software, and automation systems a method to present this information from the various suppliers' devices in a consistent, intuitive way.

Most folks already subscribed to one or more of the ISA email lists should have been automatically transferred to the new email list management system. Jonas wrote:

ISA has upgraded the list server. ISA members and customers have been migrated automatically. If you don't see [eddl] within brackets in the subject of this message you must manually transition to be part of the EDDL discussion list and to continue to receive the monthly update. Follow this procedure:

1. Create an ISA account (free)
2. Create list server password
   - Wait for confirmation email and click on link in it.
3. Join the EDDL discussion list
   - Log in
   - Click Join, enter your name, and click join
   - Wait for confirmation email and click on link in it.

In case you're not already on the EDDL list, Jonas also shared a few articles, which you may find of interest:

• Interface level made easy with EDDL
• Polymer Plant Achieves Interoperability and Intelligent Device Management with EDDL

The Polymer Plant article was a great example of a process manufacturer, Synthomer, quantifying the benefits of their application of automation and asset management. Things such as output 30% over nameplate rating, 30% faster batch turnarounds, and 15% reduced recipe development time. I'm guessing the engineers behind these quantified results are getting their next capital appropriation requests approved more easily!

The email also linked to the archive of articles on the EDDL.org site. There was also links to presentations, videos, news, technical white papers, and literature. Now you know why I used the word indefatigable to describe Jonas' efforts in educating process automation professionals on the value of this standard.

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The Flow Control magazine website has a great Safety Instrumented Systems Primer interview with Emerson's Mike Boudreaux. You may recall Mike and his views on process safety and safety instrumented systems in earlier posts.

If you're not already steeped in the language of process safety with things like safety integrity levels (SIL), safety instrumented functions (SIF), IEC 61511, etc., the questions and answers help provide a good primer. I'll share just a few snippets from the Q&A, but you'll want to read the entire interview.

Mike addresses the question on how safety instrumented systems (SIS) have come to be:

Much of the focus has been to reduce process risk through inherently safe design and independent layers of protection (IPL). Safety instrumented systems are one of the many layers of protection that are used to deliver increased process safety.

Further on this point, he describes why an SIS is important:

When a process cannot practically be designed to be inherently safe, an SIS can be used to reduce risks to an acceptable level. An SIS can be designed to deliver a specified safety integrity level (SIL) of risk reduction. IEC 61508 defines SIL 1 through SIL 4, with each SIL designating a relative level of risk reduction provided by a safety instrumented function (SIF) by an additional order of magnitude.

For those new to the world of process safety, Mike also shares his view on common pitfalls in process safety SIS design and implementation:

When developing a safety requirements specification (SRS), process manufacturers sometimes go overboard and make the SRS too complex to be practical, or they go in the opposite direction and don't provide a consistent set of documentation... the SRS should provide a functional description and the integrity requirements for each SIF. The SRS is the document against which all of the safety lifecycle activities are verified and validated. As such, it is important that this documentation be simple to use and maintain.

The other major pitfall is the complexity of SIF design and SIL verification. Mike offers:

Knowing which devices to use, selecting the appropriate hardware fault tolerance, correctly applying prior-use data, and designing the most economical SIF to minimize capital and operating costs while maximizing availability, can be a difficult task. End-users should make sure the people performing this work are competent in the area of process safety systems design and, more specifically, SIF design and SIL verification.

On advancements in SIS design strategy, Mike describes how technology is playing a key role:

Improved device diagnostics is being driven by technology advancements in microprocessors and device design. Diagnostics reduces the dangerous undetected failure rates for devices. Automated online proof testing and device diagnostics will deliver safer systems, because failures will be detected whenever they occur.

I hope you'll get as much from the interview as I did.

MP3 | iTunes

In an earlier post, I discussed thought leadership as a reason you might consider using the people-to-people connecting social media applications like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, etc. This topic is one of the items Deb Franke and I will be sharing in our Thriving in Chaos presentation at the Emerson Exchange.

Another topic will be ways to more effectively find the information you need to solve the issues in front of you. As we all know, there is absolutely no shortage of information. Our email inboxes overflow. The World Wide Web contains at least 25.45 billion pages of information as of June 23, 2009. If your desk looks anything like mine, well, it's not a pretty picture.

So how do you deal with this ever-growing flood of information to find what you need to solve the issues at hand? Of course, we all know about Google and the other search engines and have become well trained on the proper selection and amount of keywords and phrases to use. Sometimes this works great, sometimes not.

One big issue is that there's a lot of wisdom trapped in email inboxes and sent items folders. Desktop indexing and search software like Windows Search, Google Desktop, and many others can help to some extent. But what about the information others have that doesn't reach your email inbox?

Different approaches from content management systems to blogs, wikis, and forum software have been and are being tried with varying degrees of success. The key element to success seems to be the number of people willing to participate and the community that naturally forms from this participation. Metcalf's Law states, "the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2)." He also offers:

...a more insightful and, I think, important contribution to the conversation -- that to understand the value of a social network we need to consider not just the number of users but also the affinity between the members of the network.

My take away? Your fastest path to the information you need to solve the issue at hand, if a Google search does not get a quick answer, is to try your social network--if you've built this network to sufficient size to realize the exponential effects described by Metcalf's Law.

Why is that? Beyond the social bonds you establish, with each connection you make, you are adding another human brain:

...containing about 10 billion nerve cells, or neurons. On average, each neuron is connected to other neurons through about 10 000 synapses. (The actual figures vary greatly, depending on the local neuroanatomy.) The brain's network of neurons forms a massively parallel information processing system. This contrasts with conventional computers, in which a single processor executes a single series of instructions.

If you use LinkedIn, use the Answers area to ask questions. You might also try answering some and building expertise credibility if your answer is selected as the best answer or a good answer. LinkedIn also has groups such as Automation Engineers Technical Group and Automation Engineers. Several automation suppliers have LinkedIn groups, such as Emerson's DeltaV group.

If you use Twitter, try posing your questions to those who choose to follow you. You'll grow your list of followers as you share interesting things about yourself and/or your expertise. Or if Twitter is not for you, try using some of the well-established email lists from ISA and Control.com.

As good as it is having more than 25 billion things at your fingertips, having trillions of massively parallel neural connections working with you is something you want to foster, strengthen, and grow.

MP3 | iTunes

Attention 2009 Emerson Exchange (Sept 28-Oct 2) presenters--your presentations are due for review in a mere two weeks (June 26). This fact jolted me more than my typical few cups of coffee this morning.

I huddled with Emerson's Deb Franke to flesh out our Thriving in Chaos presentation. Given the trying economic times in which most businesses find themselves, it seems this chaos is not abating.

The presentations we've given in the past (2007, 2008) have focused more on the social media (a.k.a. Web 2.0) applications and the benefits of their use. This year we want to lift the focus to the results of what you may be trying to accomplish in your work and career, and how these applications can amplify your efforts.

One example is to better establish thought leadership around your expertise. ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan wrote about this in his What Have I Learned? - Writing post. He shared:

I would guess 100 or more automation professionals are retiring each year who have published at best an infinitesimally small portion of their expertise for posterity.

It does not require a blog to build thought leadership around your area of expertise. It can be through email lists like ISA's Technical and Industry Discussion Lists, supplier product sites like our DeltaV LinkedIn and Facebook groups, comments on industry and automation blogs, or aggregated sites you might create such as the Process Safety Room in FriendFeed. In turn, this can lead to articles, mentions in books, podcasts, business press, and others who turn to you for your expertise.

Two short weeks and much thought baking to do--I'd better get going. If you're also presenting, best of luck in pulling yours together too!

MP3 | iTunes

At the upcoming June 10-12, 2009 Automatic Control Conference, Emerson's Greg McMillan and Terry Blevins will be presenting, Bridging the Gap between Academia and Industry. Describing this session, Greg wrote on the ModelingAndControl.com blog:

The first semester I taught the Chemical Engineering course "Introduction to Process Dynamics and Control" at Washington University in Saint Louis as an adjunct professor, the students could not relate to my attempt to introduce practical plant applications and considerations in the normal course of Laplace transforms and bode plots. The second semester I added a virtual plant that consisted of a DeltaV DCS running in the Simulate mode integrated with HYSYS dynamic process simulations for each student. I later configured most of the process simulations directly in control studio. I was amazed how fast the students learned how to work in the graphical configuration environment and operator interface. All they needed was a few screen prints on navigation to get them started. Several of the students subsequently got intern or permanent positions doing configuration at the local DCS industry center. I had these students with experience in the automation industry come back to speak to the next class. The result was a dramatic turnaround in appreciation and understanding of what they would face in industry. The students decided on their own to go online to find and buy tee-shirts with Duncan, the DCS mascot, windsurfing. I ended up buying tee-shirts too and we all posed for a group photo by one of the students.

This got me thinking how technology has impacted the way we learn. For most of us mid-career and later, learning involved the journey Greg attempted in his first round with the class. We'd patiently learn parts and pieces with the hope that it would all be tied together in the end and become understandable.

He realized that this method was not effective in the world where answers to anything seem but a Google search away. The students he was teaching also had used near life-like video games for the better part of their teenage years. The effective way was to show with near life-like process simulations the big picture first and start the hands on process early. In the presentation, the authors describe this learning process: Explore ∗ Discover ∗ Prototype ∗ Demo ∗ Improve ∗ Deploy ∗ Educate

In the paper that accompanies their presentation, Greg and Terry describe this virtual plant:

The "virtual DCS" is not an emulation or translation but is a virtual replication of a complete DCS with all of the standard and optional advanced tools. Control system trend charts, displays, configurations are exchanged between a "hardware DCS" and "virtual DCS" by standard copy, import, export, and download functions. The incorporation of process models in a "virtual DCS" creates a "virtual plant", which offers an opportunity to integrate and build process knowledge with the "state of the art" advanced tools for Process Analytical Technology (PAT) and Advanced Process Control (APC)...

The entire lineup of Bridging the Gap presentations looks quite impressive and includes professors from the University of Texas at Austin, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Purdue University, and Washington University in St. Louis. Last month, I covered the Rose-Hulman unit operations presentation.

If you're responsible or involved in the process of educating tomorrow's process manufacturing engineers, this might be a conference for you.

MP3 | iTunes

I received an email notice from the Emerson Global Users Exchange (a.k.a. Emerson Exchange) board, letting me know that on-line registration is now open. You have until August 17^th of this year to save 25% on your registration fee.

The Emerson Exchange will be September 28^th through October 2^nd at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. This year's conference theme Engaging Minds. Amazing Results. is described in the email:

In these challenging economic times, as our companies press for increased productivity, energy efficiency, and lower production costs, automation professionals can truly shine by Engaging their Minds to achieve Amazing Results! There's no better place to discover a new idea, discuss solutions with subject matter experts, and prepare for the upcoming technological advances in process control.

The conference will include over 300 sessions offering best practices, implementation successes, tips and tricks, and proven project methodologies. Tracks include Business Operations & System Integration, Asset Optimization / Maintenance & Reliability, System Applications, Project Management & Engineering Tools, Control System Modernization, Instrumentation Applications, Process Optimization, Valves Applications, Emerson Product/Services Updates, Safety Systems & Instrumentation, Education Services Training Courses, and Wireless.

Within these tracks, here's a preliminary agenda of the presentations, short courses, and workshops. More details of the individual sessions will be added over the coming months.

As I mentioned in a prior post, Deb Franke and I are again teaming up for a presentation, Gamechangers: How to Thrive in Chaos. This is a fitting topic for these interesting economic times in which we all find ourselves. If you have some thoughts on how you're dealing with this chaos, add a comment or shoot me an email.

Our presentation continues on our series of Emerson Exchange presentations on the benefits of applying social media applications to what you do.

I really look forward to seeing you in Orlando for great conversation and fun.

MP3 | iTunes

If you're a process automation professional and you haven't been following Greg McMillan on the ModelingAndControl.com blog and his "What Have I Learned?" series of posts, you're not in the flow of great knowledge sharing. Here's the current list of posts:

• What Have I Learned? - Sharing Knowledge
• What Have I Learned? - Einstein and the Ultimate Limits for Loop Performance
• What Have I Learned? To Lag or Not to Lag?
• What Have I Learned? - Unexpected Wireless Benefits
• What Have I Learned? - Cascade Control -Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
• What Have I Learned? - Manipulation of Multiple Flows Part 1 - Split Ranged Control, Part 2 - Valve Position Control, Part 3 - MPC
• What Have I Learned? - Ratio Control Part 1, Part 2
• What Have I Learned? - Cost and Source of Oscillations Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
• What Have I Learned? - Wiring and VFD Problems
• What Have I Learned? - Writing

If you have wrestled with any of these control strategies, I hope you'll find some of the experience Greg shares helps shortcut a path to a solution.

The first post in the series, Sharing Knowledge, ends with this exhortation for you to join the ranks of those who'll share their expertise:

What distinguish humans from other animals are the gifts through art and science to discover, create, and disseminate knowledge and beauty expanding our understanding and perception of the universe. Art and science can both get at the essence and create new entities that take on an essence of their own. Both improve the quality and level of life. For me, good technical writing is both art and science. Try doing a weekly blog on what you have learned. I bet if you stick with it you will find it rewarding and create something that takes on an existence of its own.

I liked Greg's shift from the technical aspects of process control to today's post on writing. Greg gives his reasons for sharing these posts:

The main point of this blog like all of my writing is to share what I have learned. My goal for next year is to help prevent significant expertise and knowledge in process automation from being lost forever. I would guess 100 or more automation professionals are retiring each year who have published at best an infinitesimally small portion of their expertise for posterity. Also, new engineers are facing special challenges. My sense is the new kid in the control room doesn't have the mentors or the internal technical training programs I took for granted. They may be thrown into the midst of a difficult problem with no guidance.

He then shares ten points on writing. I especially like number 9, Don't get hung up on perfect grammar or a perfect piece. It reminds me of the unsolicited advice I offered a fellow Twitterer expressing his frustration with writers block. I pointed him to the Cult of the Done Manifesto.

I'd like to say great minds think alike, but I'll not go anywhere near there when I'm writing about Greg!

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As I mentioned in an earlier "itchy publish button" post, it's always dangerous to include a blogger on your email distributions for upcoming items. I saw an advanced copy of a 2009 American Control Conference paper prepared by Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology's Atanas Serbezov and Ronald Artigue and Emerson local business partner, Cornerstone Control's Ron Knecht. The abstract for this paper, Bridging the Gap between Academia and Industry is:

This presentation describes the deployment of an industrial Process Automation System (PAS), in the Chemical Engineering Unit Operations (UO) laboratory at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and its incorporation in the undergraduate curriculum. The UO laboratory has over a dozen of pilot-scale process units (skids) and creates an environment very similar to a typical chemical, petrochemical or pharmaceutical plant. Students learn how to maintain their process under control, take it safely from one operating condition to another, collect and analyze data using a process historian, respond to process alarms and remotely troubleshoot their experiments with limited process information.

Rose Hulman's Chemical Engineering department's UO lab is 6500 square feet, includes process operations such as heat exchangers, pumps, a distillation column, chemical reactors filtration units, and a fermentor. The DeltaV system on which the students learn process control is physically separated from the campus local area network. The students do have remote access to the engineering stations and operator stations and wireless access within the Chemical Engineering building.

The units are outfitted with various measurement technologies. For example, flow is measured with Coriolis, vortex shedding, and orifice/differential pressure technology. Level is measured with ultrasonic and differential pressure instruments.

Three upper division courses are available which teach process control through experiment, data analysis, report writing, and oral presentations. Here's an example of one of the experiments described in the paper:

...in the tubular reactor experiment, the control system can maintain the flow rate through the reactor at set point very well, but the process will become unstable if a set point change from laminar to turbulent regime is executed in automatic mode. In this situation students have to switch from automatic to manual mode and move the system manually towards the new operating conditions.

The paper describes the professors' work with the collaboration of many industrial partners, including Cornerstone Controls and Emerson. In addition to equipment, they received technical advice from the control system architecture to the design of experiments and its associated documentation. Additional work is being looked at to bring virtual plant capabilities into the curriculum.

I was very impressed with the paper and what's being done at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology to prepare the next generation of process control and automation engineers. The paper will be presented June 10-12, 2009 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

Our internal blogs at Emerson (blogs.emersonprocess.com for those readers with access to the Emerson internal network) are vibrant and growing. One of the folks I've featured in past posts, Jeff Hackney, who leads the DeltaV operator training solutions (DeltaV OTS) global sales team, has joined the ranks of internal bloggers.

In one of his posts, he highlights an OTS team project that delivers a complete operator training solution. This operator training system supports 4 butane splitter columns, butane butylene treater unit, propane propylene treater unit and utilities (cooling water system, steam/condensate system) for a U.S.-based refiner.

The simulation includes a dynamic model with startup and shutdown exercises and 33 training scenarios to help prepare the operators to work through simulated abnormal plant situations. Instructor graphics allow the refinery instructor to perform activities such as isolation valves opening and closing, and manual drain and filling valves not controlled from the plant DeltaV automation system.

Another post describes an operator training solution for an offshore oil and gas producer. This training solution supports two offshore platform wellheads and all downstream process areas through to sales gas to the pipeline company. In addition to the platform dynamic models, the OTS team also emulated safety instrumented system (SIS) shutdown logic. For this oil & gas producer, the team developed 47 training scenarios including startup and shutdown, instructor graphics, deck operations graphics, and random scenario generation. The random scenario generation allows the operators to train on the system without an instructor.

Jeff notes that some believe that building a large, dynamic simulation model and integrating it with various emulated or simulated control systems is a relatively simple activity that can be grasped within a few days. The reality is that updating a complex process model needs a detailed understanding of the process itself, simulation technology, the automation system and a design for the interaction between these components. It takes a combination of skills that most individuals usually do not possess. The OTS team works with process manufacturers to augment the skills within the plant to develop and maintain these operator training solutions.

Operator training systems become increasingly important as experienced operators retire and new ones join the ranks. Having instructor-led or instructor-less training systems can help develop the skills needed to handle abnormal plant situations when they arise.

MP3 | iTunes

I came upon these statistics on the growth of social media applications, often dubbed Web 2.0:

Propelled by the growth of Facebook Inc. and LinkedIn Corp., social networks are now more popular than e-mailing on the Internet, according to a Nielsen study.

I mention this because Emerson's Deb Franke and I were honored to be asked by Control Engineering Asia group editor, Bob Gill, to write on the topic of Web 2.0. We believe these people-connecting applications can help you and other process-manufacturing professionals better connect, engage, and advance. The article, The World of Web 2.0, shares our thoughts that today, more than ever, you should consider the use these applications for:

...finding answers faster, easily connecting with other experts outside your current sphere, discovering new things you didn't even know to look for, and having collective wisdom shape and improve initial ideas.

In this article, we shared many of the key thoughts from our presentation at last year's Emerson Exchange. The social media applications we highlight include LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Google Reader, and Google specialized news and blogs searches. I'll touch on a few thoughts we shared.

LinkedIn helps you grow and foster a network of professional and personal relationships. We wrote:

The value of building a LinkedIn network comes in several ways. The part we find most beneficial is the question and answer portion. When you ask questions, the question goes to everyone in your immediate network and is available for anyone in LinkedIn to answer. This circle of expertise extends far beyond whom you personally know. Also, as you answer questions, you begin to connect with others with similar expertise.

Twitter is a service where you can share what's on your mind with the world in a 140 characters or less. The power is in its simplicity. We wrote:

People find value from Twitter in many ways. The most common use is to ask questions to those who follow you when you need quick answers or advice. For example, a "has anyone seen this?" technical question is a fast way to begin troubleshooting. Business travelers can ask for recommended restaurants and advice in unfamiliar cities. You will find the value of Twitter grows as your network of followers expands and you learn more about them.

Flickr and YouTube for images and videos are both services I use with this blog to help convey ideas better than words alone can do. We also use it to share pictures of the DeltaV character, Duncan and for DeltaV videos and case studies.

The Google Reader provides a single spot to view anything you wish to subscribe and have flow to you, instead of having to seek and find. I've collected many process automation- and industry- related blogs and news feeds which you can import to your Google Reader or other RSS reader.

The specialized news and blog searches in Google provide great ways to find more current or good "how to" type information. They may get you to an answer faster than the overall search engines.

Deb and I conclude the article with this:

We believe innovation begins with curiosity and overcoming the comfort of the status quo. Give one or more of these Web 2.0 applications a try, and see what benefits you personally experience. Our hope is that you find new sources of innovation and success.

We hope you do!

MP3 | iTunes

It is Spring Break week here in Austin, Texas for the schools and universities in the area. Unlike most people who did a family vacation, I took a couple of vacation days to attend the local SXSW Interactive conference. From their website:

Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology. Whether you are a hard-core geek, a dedicated content creator, a new media entrepreneur, or just someone who likes being around an extremely creative community, SXSW Interactive is for you!

I'm not sure about hard-core geek, but I consider myself at least in the ranks. There is also a film event and music event so creative folks are everywhere. My goal was to listen for ideas that I could "borrow" and apply to this blog, in other social media initiatives, or as part of the big, Emerson Exchange event.

The rapidly growing service, Twitter, blossomed several years ago at SXSWi. People discovered that it is a great way to share what they're learning in the sessions they attend, to announce and look for impromptu meet-ups, and to ask questions of the panelists during the panel session. To get a flavor for some of these examples and more, look at the Twitter search on the tag #sxsw. This means that anyone who uses this text sequence #sxsw among their 140 characters of wisdom will have their thoughts easily found by others using the same tagging convention.

At last year's Emerson Exchange, we used the tag, #EmEx. There are just a few remaining messages, but we had quite a number, from several people, during the event. I'd like to encourage everyone who comes upon this post and is considering a trip to the Emerson Exchange, to sign up for a Twitter account to gain some familiarity with it.

One thing I really liked was the sessions that used separate tags. One example is the keynote discussion between Guy Kawasaki and Chris Anderson on the power of free. They assigned a tag, #free to this particular session. There are 30+ pages of audience member tweeted notes published during this session, and during the following session, Rebuilding the World with Free Everything. The second session even put the Twitter Search screen running the #free search on the two big screens. The panel addressed some of the questions that came in.

Imagine being in an Emerson Exchange session where you can see your notes and the notes of other audience members streaming in real-time. Or imagine where you could ask your questions and have the presenter see and answer them in real-time. Or imagine where others not attending the event could also see and follow, much like the peek you have into what I saw at SXSW if you followed the links to the #sxsw and #free tags.

Now some presenters might not want any of this and prefer a "no tweeting" rule for their session, but I imagine many would love to see this level of interactivity. I'll raise this issue with the Emerson Exchange Board for their thoughts on this.

The first step to making these imaginations a reality is for you to give Twitter a try, if you haven't already. We offer a few tips on how it works on the DeltaV Twitterers page. Hopefully, you'll give it a try so we can have some of the great, dynamic exchanges just like what I experienced at SXSW!

MP3 | iTunes

Update: I'm reading my RSS feeds over lunch and saw a great post on Twitter from senior digital editor of Chemical Processing magazine, Traci Purdum--Twitter Isn't a Bird-Brained Idea. Glad to see more folks educating others on the value of Twitter!

If you'll pardon some self-indulgence, today marks the final day of my third year of the Emerson Process Experts blog. Time flies when you're having fun! It began with this February 28, 2006 welcome post. The mission of the blog has remained largely the same over the years:

...to create a shorter path between process manufacturing professionals seeking solutions and the experts around Emerson Process Management who have valuable industry, application, and technology expertise. You'll have the opportunity to meet and exchange views with the people behind our services and technologies.

Unlike some prolific members in our trade press who have notched thousands of posts, this will be the 371^st post with 210 comments received to date. Much greater have been the emails and phone calls meeting process automation professionals from many industries and world areas.

In the three years of blogging, a lot has changed. There are more voices in our world of process manufacturing, but not as many as I would have guessed.

One significant change is the continuing expansion of ways to communicate publicly your expertise and ideas. Blogs used to be one the major ways, but now many more ways exist. In these tough, global economic times, bringing more visibility to your expertise is a good thing with the caveat of understanding your company's guidelines, or following well thought out ones, such as IBM's social computing guidelines.

Borrowing from last year's Emerson Exchange presentation, here are a few examples of ways to share your expertise.

If you're not already using LinkedIn, consider joining and building your network. There are groups like the DeltaV Digital Automation System, where you can ask and answer questions if you're experienced working with the DeltaV system. There is also a question and answer section to help find answers faster and share your expertise. The questioner rates the good and best answers, which builds your expertise rating if your answers are selected.

Facebook is another community area, which tends to be used more on a social basis, although there are all sorts of business-related groups. Again, as an example, the DeltaV system has a growing community here.

I continue to be amazed at the new and innovative ways people use these new forms of communications. Emerson's Mike Boudreaux, whom I've featured in several process safety-related posts, has two FriendFeed rooms--one on Process Safety and the other on Safety Instrumented Systems. When he finds news and events related to these topics he adds them to the room. If you have interest in these areas, it's a shortcut for you to find fast information. You can also join the room and add your comments and posts.

And as I mentioned in many earlier posts, Twitter, is increasingly becoming a mainstream form of communication. It's your opportunity to share your expertise 140 characters or less at a time. You decide whom you want to follow and others in turn can choose to follow you. There are an increasing number of voices in our world of process automation. A good place to discover some of these folks is to see who is following our DeltaV Twitter community.

There's much more to say, but I've already overloaded this post with links, so we'll save it for another time.

Thanks to everyone who has discovered the Emerson Process Experts blog and I look forward to more great years.

MP3 | iTunes

Last week I mentioned uploading two of ModelingAndControl.com blog's Greg McMillan's recent presentations. Like I did with his first presentation, here's a short recap of the second one, Control Loop Foundation for Batch and Continuous Control:

What are great about Greg's presentations are the specific application examples. Visit the slides 19-21 to see ways of improving neutralizer control using Feed forward control, signal characterization and proper piping to provide proper spacing for measurement devices. Similarly, slides 22-24 show ways to improve distillation column control using Feed forward control and signal characterization. You mostly don't realize the benefits of improved control until you reduce variability and move the setpoint closer to the operating limit.

Greg is really good at boiling things down. Here are his words summing up basic opportunities in process control (from slides 27 and 28):

• Decrease stick-slip and improve the sensitivity of the final element (Standard Deviation is the product of stick-slip, valve gain, and process gain)
  • Use properly tuned smart positioners, short shafts with tight connections, and low friction packing and seating surfaces to decrease valve slip-stick and dead band (do not use isolation valves for throttling valves)
  • If high friction packing must be used, aggressively tune the smart positioner
  • Improve valve type and sizing and add signal characterization to increase valve sensitivity
  • Use variable speed drives where appropriate for the best sensitivity
• Improve the short and long term reproducibility and reduce the interference and noise in the measurement (Standard Deviation is proportional to reproducibility and noise)
  • Use magnetic and Coriolis mass flow meters to eliminate sensing lines, improve rangeability, and reduce effect of Reynolds Number and piping
  • Use smart transmitters to reduce process and ambient effects
  • Use RTDs and digital transmitters to decrease temperature noise and drift
• Reduce loop dead time (Minimum Integrated Error is proportional to the dead time squared)
  • Decrease valve dead time (stick and dead band)
  • Decrease transport (plug flow volume) and mixing delay (turnover time)
  • Decrease measurement lags (sensor lag, dampening, and filter time)
  • Decrease discrete device delays (scan or update time)
  • Decrease analyzer sample transport and cycle time
• Tune the controllers (Integrated Error is inversely proportional to the controller gain and directly proportional to the controller integral time)
• Add cascade control (Standard Deviation is proportional to the ratio of the period of the secondary to the process time constant of the primary loop)
• Add feed forward control (Standard Deviation is proportional to the root mean square of the measurement, feed forward gain, and timing errors)
• Eliminate or slow down disturbances (track down source and speed)
• Add inline analyzers (probes) and at-line analyzers with automated sampling since ultimately what you want to control is a composition
• Optimize set points (based on process knowledge and variability)
• To realize the benefit of reduced variability, often need to change a set point

He sums up the presentation with these key points:

• Tune the loops
• Use digital positioners and throttle valves to get resolution better than 0.5%
• Use Coriolis and Magmeters to get accuracy better than 0.5% of rate
• Add cascade and feed forward control for disturbances
• Model the process to dispel myths and build on process knowledge
• Improve the set points
• Add composition control
• Reduce the size and speed of disturbances
• Transfer variability from most important process outputs
• Add online data analytics (multivariate statistical process control)
• Add online metrics to spur competition, and to adjust, verify, and justify controls

View or download the presentation if you think some of this guidance might benefit you.

MP3 | iTunes

ModelingAndControl.com blog's Greg McMillan copied me on two presentations he recently gave to a major chemical manufacturer. Being a blogger and firmly believing that great content should be shared with the world, I asked Greg if I could upload the files to my slideshare account. Greg graciously agreed.

Here's one of them, Opportunity Assessment and Advanced Control:

Greg listed the benefits that advanced process control can bring, based on his experience and 33 year career in the chemical manufacturing industry. These included:

• Improved yield (better selectivity)^*
• Less blending, scrap, and rework or higher price for higher grade^*
• Lower utility costs (energy minimization)
• Higher production rate (feed maximization)
• Increased on stream time (fewer shutdowns)
• Reduced maintenance (less stress on equipment)
• Safer operation (fewer shutdowns and less stress on equipment)

^*The benefits for improved yield and less scrap or rework can be taken as an increase in capacity or a reduction in raw materials

The presentation is rich with guidance for opportunity sizing and assessment, common myths and misconceptions, lessons learned, rules of thumb, and of course, Greg's famous top 10 lists. I'll highlight just the opportunity assessment portion of the presentation and leave the rest for your perusal.

Greg showed a chart of three companies who benchmarked their regulatory and batch control, advanced control, and data management. The total improvement in cost of goods sold (COGS) across these three categories was 8%.

Greg advised to begin with a thorough opportunity sizing before the opportunity assessment using cost sheets, product prices, historical trends, business plans, research reports, technical studies, and simulations to establish actual, practical, and theoretical performance--like yields and capacity improvements--with operations and technology.

Next, he counseled to work with the plant process engineers to go through the process, identify constraints, and offer ideas on opportunities to reduce gaps identified in the opportunity sizing exercise to see and work way out of the current process box. You'll want to avoid the temptation of a canned solution or to come to conclusions before the plant personnel thoroughly discuss peculiarities and special problems. Greg felt that it's important for knowledgeable people to speak first and ask questions--and to hold off on solutions. Instead, offer concepts that people can use to generate solutions and be a good listener during this phase.

And from the process itself, use the automation system and the historian to find loops in manual, limit cycles, slow or oscillatory set point and load responses, and controller outputs running near limits.

Your next step is to look for opportunities to infer compositions from fast, lower maintenance measurements such as density, viscosity, mass spectrometers, microwave, and nuclear magnetic resonance. Seek applications of accurate mass flow ratios for material balance knowledge and control.

You'll want to ask the operations folks what would happen if a set point or operating mode were changed. When developing possible solutions, pick control technologies to address opportunities and give relative estimates of implementation cost and time (e.g. high, medium, low) and percent of gap addressed. For a sanity check, ask plant process engineers to estimate percentage of gap addressed by each solution.

Greg's closing thoughts for this assessment process were to take advantage of momentum and group enthusiasm by starting on "quick hits" immediately and setting definitive schedules and assignments for others (to avoid inertia of waiting for a quote or study.) Finally, take the action to tune the loops and improve the loops.

If you view or download the presentation, look at some of the questions you should ask during this assessment on slides 16 and 17. Hopefully you'll find some nuggets on how and where to apply APC to reduce your COGS.

MP3 | iTunes

Marshall Meier received an award for his recent Emerson Exchange presentation, Improve How You Visualize Data. I first met Marshall at last year's Exchange after I discovered we both did presentations on social media, a.k.a. Web 2.0. Here was last year's summary of his presentation.

In this year's data visualization presentation, he shared ideas from preeminent thought leader, Edward Tufte, and his seminal book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Another thought leader Marshall highlighted was Stephen Few, who wrote several books on data presentation, including Show Me the Numbers.

When presenting, your focus should be on just showing the data. Don't clutter it with extraneous visual information. Why does this matter? Your data is important. It helps you and those with whom you share this data better understand problems and make decisions. The goal for an excellent graph or chart should be to get the viewers of this data to ask questions.

Marshall showed the same information presented in both a cluttered and clean presentation. The first view might prompt more thoughts about mad scientists than about the rise and fall of U.S. patents over time. Presentation viewers are more likely to engage in a conversation about the data with the simple uncluttered presentation.

One of Tufte's ideas Marshall shared was the data-to-ink ratio. This is the amount of ink devoted to the data compared to the total ink used in the graphic. For a PowerPoint presentation, think pixels instead of ink. The higher the ratio, the more you're focusing the visual display on the data.

Marshall described "chartjunk" as additional graphics not related to the data in a quest to make the chart more aesthetically pleasing. Instead, it distracts from the data. If you think your graph is boring, you're showing the wrong data. Open a USA Today newspaper and you'll find examples of chartjunk--like a gas price tracker that shows a gas pump graphic with a window containing the average price and another containing the directional price change. Although cute, the data-to-ink ratio is low.

Another example Marshall shared is the comparison between the main Yahoo page and Google page. They are at opposite ends of the visual display spectrum.

For those that love the visually exciting, 3D graphics in Microsoft Office products like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, Marshall's simple message is, "Don't use 3D." Although it may look cool, the 3^rd dimension does not add anything. When the graph has multiple data series, 3D makes it difficult to compare data between two data points. In 2D, comparisons are easier to make. Again, the focus shifts from the "eye candy" to the data itself.

You can also fall into the trap of distorting the data. The concept of "lie factor" is the size of the effect shown in the graphic divided by the size the effect in the data itself. Graphic treatments that show a 3D-perspective can visually distort the data. Bar charts often convey size, relative differences, and area better than pie charts do.

Marshall closed his presentation with a famous graph described by Edward Tufte:

Probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn, this map by Charles Joseph Minard portrays the losses suffered by Napoleon's army in the Russian campaign of 1812.

It shows you can use creativity and "eye-candy" if it amplifies the data and not the extraneous. Congratulations, Marshall, on a very informative, award-winning presentation!

MP3 | iTunes

At the Emerson Exchange last week, Deb Franke and I presented, Feeding that Inner Geek While Sharing Your Expertise and Interests:

The key point of our talk was that there are more ways than ever to discover things that interest you, to share things that interest you, and to use these tools to be more successful (and have more fun) in what you do.

There seemed to be a lot of interest in the topic and it was really great to have the energy of two standing-room-only sessions. We captured the questions and answers from both sessions, in case you weren't able to join us.

The presentation is fully scripted if you download it, or here's a transcript.

One of the really great ideas Deb had was to have index cards made for the question and answers and geek treats that members from both sessions wanted to share.

As with most collaborative things brought to us by social media (a.k.a. Web 2.0), there were some great ideas exchanged and we hope you find some of these geek treats, Q&A and the presentation itself helpful. If this sparks some ideas, keep the conversation flowing and add your comments below.

MP3 | iTunes

At last week's Emerson Exchange, I had the chance to catch one of my favorite presenters, Mike Schmidt, who is a principle SIS consultant in Emerson's refining and chemical industry center. What makes him a favorite is that he can really simplify concepts around process safety and safety instrumented systems (SIS) and make them easy to understand by those of us not steeped in safety. He also adds a touch of humor to keep the audience engaged and having fun while learning about the serious subject of process safety.

Mike co-developed with Emerson process safety engineer, Tim Forbis, the presentation, "What About...Using Bypasses, DBB, and Other Process Features in Safety Instrumented Functions". Their abstract:

There are special design concerns when process features like double-block-and-bleed and isolation-and-bypass valve configurations are included in safety instrumented functions (SIFs). This talk addresses these concerns and also gives guidance on considerations for performing safety integrity level (SIL) verification calculations when incorporating these and other process design features in SIFs.

Mike provided guidance on four process examples including pump and discharge valve, multiple inlets (to a tank or vessel), double block and bleed, and unit bypass and isolation.

Let's take the first example from the presentation of a pump and discharge valve. The safe state is stopping the flow by closing the discharge valve. The complication is the pump continuing to run causing a "deadhead" condition against the valve and risking pump damage. The typical function of the basic process control system (BPCS) is to stop the pump if the discharge valve is not open.

Mike and Tim's recommendation was not to include the pump in the SIF for several reasons including:

• Pump damage is not a hazard protected against
• Pump damage does not warrant SIL-rated protection
• Less complexity means a better spurious trip rate
• Pump stop may not contribute to SIF purpose--stopping flow
• Few components decreases cost--initial investment and operating cost

Now, if deadheading the pump is its own hazard, use a separate SIF with hazard-specific trip conditions. For instance, if the deadhead condition causes the pump to leak leading to fire, then you must mitigate that risk. Or, if the pump stop is included in the SIF as a redundant means to stop flow, then trip on the same condition as the discharge valve. A separate trip condition based on valve action adds complexity and cost, compromises independence and results in worse Probability of Failure on Demand, Average (PFD_AVG) and mean time to failure spurious (MTTF_s).

A final consideration Mike shares is that if your logic solver, such as DeltaV SIS, has sequencing capabilities, the safety logic should stop the pump first and then close the valve.

The other cases also present recommendations and counter-recommendations based on the circumstances of the hazard to be mitigated. Mike's key takeaways for the audience are that the actions for the SIFs may need to be different than the actions for process control in the same process. Also, the final control elements in the SIFs should be limited to those needed to accomplish the purpose of each SIF.

Adding more than is required increases the probability of failure on demand, increases spurious trips, increases investment costs, and increases ongoing operating and maintenance costs.

Update: One of the great suggestions from a customer (thanks Rich!) at last week's Emerson Exchange was that I should consider recording the blog for those with long commutes. I thought we'd give it a whirl, so here is today's post in podcast form. Next step will be to figure out how to get it to iTunes... stay tuned!

There is a flurry of activity as we make final preparations for next week's Emerson Exchange. If you're reading this post before the event (September 29-October 3, 2008), there's a good chance that you're a leading-edge kind of person who knows how to subscribe to this blog via RSS to see this post soon after it's published.

So here are my final tips from a social media (a.k.a. Web 2.0) perspective:

1. Use the handy scheduler to find the sessions you want to attend and to build your personal schedule. There is also a spreadsheet you can download to have the information locally on your PC.
2. If you're not already using some of the Web 2.0 / social media applications and are curious, consider attending Deb Franke and my "Feeding That Inner Geek" presentation (Tues 9/30 9am Chesapeake A, Wed 10/1 2:30pm Chesapeake A). I checked with the hotel and these rooms seat 80 so hopefully they'll be enough room for everyone who wants to catch it.) If you're not going to be able to make it, the presentation will be posted in a future blog post.
3. Give Twitter a try. It's a great way to communicate in short bursts what you're seeing and where to meet up or discover meet ups with others. This is one of the things we'll discuss in our presentation. The big key is to tag your posts with #EmEx so that others can discover them with this #EmEx Twitter search. You can even subscribe to this #EmEx search if you have a web-enabled phone and use the Google Reader mobile version or other mobile RSS reader. Here's a picture showing how this looks on my phone.
4. Many of the people I've featured in blog posts will be presenting. Check out some of the blog categories on the right side for areas of interest. Scan the category posts and see if there will be folks you'd like to see. Look them up in the scheduler or spreadsheet from tip #1.
5. Track me down. All of my contact info on the right side of every blog page and I would really enjoy speaking with you! If you're not going to be joining us in Washington D.C., look for updates on this blog and through the Twitter stream of communications.
6. Have fun! There's lots of old friends to catch up with, new friends to make and great information to exchange. Hopefully, you'll accomplish everything you set out to do and have lots of fun in doing so.

See you in person or virtually through the Web 2.0 /social media channels!

Update: Both sessions are in Chesapeake A!

Here's a quick post to end the week. I had the great honor of doing a keynote presentation at the ISA Marketing & Sales meeting this week on the subject of Web 2.0. The presentation, Challenges, Perils and Opportunities in Web 2.0 for Automation Marketing:

The purpose was to share some thoughts and experiences for other automation suppliers who attended this event. There were a lot of great questions at the end and most seem to be very engaged in the subject. Here a couple of reviews from Walt Boyes, Gary Mintchell, and some great Twitter tweets from Juliann Grant. Also, Carl Henning at PTO Profiblog saw the uploaded presentation and asked if anyone other than our small circle of bloggers really follows any of this stuff. Add any thoughts you might have.

The week after next at the Emerson Exchange, Deb Franke and I will be presenting on the topic of great ways to take advantage of Web 2.0, Feeding that Inner Geek (Tues 9/30 9am Chesapeake B, Wed 10/1 2:30pm Chesapeake A.) The audience is not to sales and marketing folks like this one, but rather engineers and other automation professionals.

I hope if you're going to the Exchange, that you'll join us. Your pre-work, should you choose to accept it, is to read this DeltaV News item on Twitter, take action and join Twitter, and be prepared to tag all your tweets at the Exchange with the tag #EmEx so others can easily find the thoughts you share with this simple search.

Update: Juliann, I saw I fat-fingered your name and left off an "n" on the end. I fixed it. Great seeing you this week!

Update 2: I just saw Gary Mintchell's post pointing to his YouTube Automation Travels video recap from this event. Check it out!

Update 3: Juliann Grant has a great recap, ISA Marketing and Sales Summit Roundup, on her What's Working in Marketing blog. Thanks for your kind words, Juliann!

I'll close this week on a lighter note after the earlier FUD post. I've been working on my keynote presentation for the ISA Marketing & Sales Summit and pushing to have it done today. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the audience is sales and marketing folks with the numerous automation suppliers that serve manufacturers as well as members of the automation trade press. If you come across this post and are in this audience, come join us!

I thought this presentation could follow some of the ideas Deb Franke and I will discuss in our Emerson Exchange presentation, Feeding that Inner Geek. As I thought about it, the focus is very different. Both will discuss the myriad of social media applications dubbed Web 2.0. But the focus for the Emerson Exchange presentation is about the different ways you have to share your interests and expertise.

For the automation sales and marketing community, it's more about how we might consider doing what we do differently.

I think the result of automation professionals sharing their interests and expertise and sales and marketing professionals listening and participating better through many of these Web 2.0 applications will make everyone more effective at what they do. And perhaps have even a little more fun along the way.

Enough procrastinating, I need to get back and finish this presentation. Before I do, one last thing... For those going to the ISA Marketing and Sales Summit, I propose we use a Twitter tag #ISAMSS and for the Emerson Exchange, I propose we use #EmEx. This will help anyone at these two event who use Twitter to follow what others are posting. It's also a great way to share your current location and propose impromptu meetups, like at the hotel lobby bar.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, take the first steps by watching the Twitter in Plain English video and getting a Twitter account. Then connect with me by going to twitter.com/JimCahill and click follow. I'll get notified and follow you in return. If you use these tags during either or both events, you'll be amazed how others will start follow what you have to say.

Update: You can follow the Twitter posts at the Emerson Exchange by using this search: tinyurl.com/TwitterEmEx and/or subscribing to the RSS feed: tinyurl.com/TwitterEmExRSS. If we can get enough folks sharing their thoughts with Twitter and tagging their posts with #EmEx , then even if you're not able to join us, you can get still get perspectives on what's happening.

I just read a great article, How to Achieve Competent Workforce for Safety, in the May edition of Automation World magazine. Written by editor-in-chief, Gary Mintchell (also of Feed Forward blog, Automation Gear blog and Twitter fame), this article looks at the people side of ensuring safety. It examines some of the existing regulations and standards around competency, views from both process and discrete automation suppliers and views from safety-focused organizations.

Emerson's Chuck Miller is quoted in the article and has long articulated the role of people in effective safety programs. The article notes that both the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) and the global IEC organizations, through the IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 standards, "state that people involved with the safety lifecycle must be competent in the area in which they deal."

The safety lifecycle covers a broad spectrum of responsibilities, and Chuck notes, "even people we consider to be safety experts may not be expert in all areas of the lifecycle. For example, a reliability engineer may know a lot about the equipment, but may not be able to competently go into the plant and effectively calibrate and maintain that equipment."

The article describes the top-down support and commitment to build a strong safety culture with competent people across all phases of the safety lifecycle. To help in this competency requirement, Emerson developed a safety management system built according to IEC 61511 and had its processes audited and certified by TÜV in 2006.

A safety management system should clearly define the organization, competency policy, safety audit procedures and the safety lifecycle activities. Good guidelines exist to help. The United Kingdom's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in 2007 published, Managing competence for safety-related system, Part 1: Key Guidance. It includes 16 principles across the plan, design, operate and audit/review phases of the safety lifecycle.

Emerson's safety management system defines clear policies and processes, roles, role competency requirements and the training/experience required to achieve the identified skills for each role. Examples of roles in the project phase are SIS consultants, SIS project leads, SIS software engineering personnel, SIS hardware engineering personnel, and SIS field equipment engineering personnel. In addition to an employee's work experience, a key part of Emerson's safety competency requirements program is the Certified Functional Safety Expert (CFSE) certification. I did a quick search on the list of CFSE/CFSP certified safety professionals and counted more than 60 global Emerson folks that are now certified.

I caught up with Mike Boudreaux to find other ways that Emerson helps end users to address their SIS competency requirements. Thorough knowledge of the entire safety system is important. Competency requirements should apply to all of the components that make up the SIS, from the sensor to the final element and everything in between. Here are some ways that Emerson is helping:

• SIS Seminars that include a safety overview, discussion of SIS applications and a discussion of the safety lifecycle
• PlantWeb University SIS courses that are free online courses that provide a good overview of IEC 61508/61511 safety lifecycle concepts.
• Process Safety Training Courses that cover the Analysis and Realization phases of the IEC 61511 safety lifecycle
• Training courses on the SIS components that Emerson supplies, including the sensors, logic solvers, final elements, and safety lifecycle tools.
• Emerson has supported the development of the CSFE/CSFP programs through participation on the CFSE Governance Board. The governance board is an independent board that administers certification tests for CFSE.

Mike also points out, "competency goes beyond knowledge of the concepts and technologies that are used to implement an SIS. Good design and implementation reduces the random and common cause hardware failures. It is in preventing the systematic failures where managing competency throughout the entire safety lifecycle becomes so important. For many end users, this means that developing competency management in the Operation phase is very critical."

Knowledge of the process application and the hazards involved is a must. IEC 61511 also calls out the need for "adequate management and leadership skills appropriate to their role in the safety lifecycle activities" as part of competency. This has a lot to do with the type of people that you employ and the company culture that you develop. It is not something that can be created overnight and it takes a long-term commitment to be successful.

Update: Welcome Feed Forward blog readers!

I won't spoil the press release in the works about the donation of a DeltaV system to a major university for use by a consortium of universities, but I will share that Emerson's Terry Blevins was at the university last week. He was there to provide an introductory process control and DeltaV system overview.

Since a consortium of universities is involved, a neat things done for this installation was to setup VPN access and Windows Remote Desktop access into the system to configure, test, and run the DeltaV control logic and calculations created using MatLab. In preparation for teaching the course, Terry used VPN to connect to the university's intranet. He then opened a remote desktop connection into the DeltaV system to prepare the models and simulations he was going to use to teach the course. The other universities' graduate students will use this same method as they collaboratively advance their research.

I thought I share some of these basics in case you are a college student or new to our world of process automation. Fair warning--for those experienced automation professionals, quickly hit the "back" button to avoid going any further into this post.

Terry begins his introductory presentation with organization and layout of a process manufacturing plant with the caveat that there is no "typical". Plants are divided into process areas and these areas are defined based on the equipment or process grouping. Examples are tank farms, boiler houses etc.

Terry gave a field device and wiring overview, showing examples of two-wire, four-wire, HART and Foundation fieldbus devices and how they connect into an automation system's I/O.

Next, he covered documentation of the plant control and instrumentation. Typical documentation includes a plot plan, which is a physical layout of the plant. Process flow diagrams show the major pieces of equipment in a process area and their design operating conditions. A P&ID (Process & Instrumentation Diagram) shows the piping and instrumentation installed. Loop sheets show the details of instrumentation and field wiring. Terry referenced the ISA S5.1 tag number convention standard that helps identify I/O as pressure, flow, temperature etc. and its readout and output function.

Terry showed the change in technology in distributed control systems over time from a hardware and field wiring perspective from individual wiring per device, to bus-based I/O. To familiarize the students with the hardware they might see in plants, he showed pictures of controller and I/O cabinets, marshalling panels, junction boxes, and panels with connections to other intelligent devices.

He then got specific with the hardware components and software applications in the DeltaV system and showed how the students could set up virtual plants with simulations of a running process against their control strategies.

After I passed a draft Terry's way for review, he pointed me to one of his earlier ModelingAndControl.com posts, Control Basics and Terminology that covered these basics plus more including:

• Introduction Historic Perspective
• Field Devices and Wiring
• Documentation of Plant Control and Instrumentation
• Characterizing the Process, Terminology
• Control System Objectives
• Manual and Feedback Control
• Feedforward Control
• Cascade Control
• Override Control
• Split Range Valve Position and Ratio Control

He even posted a test for those of you really ambitious new learners out there. If you're new to the world of process control, take a look at these links when you have some bandwidth and see if you find them valuable.

Update: A colleague from our DeltaV Twitter community points out that my hyperlink to Characterizing the Process, Terminology was not linked correctly. I've now updated it. Thanks for keeping me on my toes!

Update 2: Another reader found my incorrect use of "are" instead of "is" in the second paragraph. Specifically:

Consortium is a collective noun and therefore singular, not plural. The same applies to nouns such as group, herd and flock. The predicate (are/is) relates back to the singular subject (consortium), not to the plural object (universities).

As regular readers can attest, I need all the help I can get when it comes to grammar!

When I posted last week on WirelessHART reliability, I had a chance to speak to Emerson's Russ Muller who is a senior PlantWeb specialist. As we discussed the reliability figures, Russ mentioned that the sites that applied the best practices saw reliability figures much higher than 99%. If you've seen the PlantWeb University Wireless course, in the Wireless 203- Self Organizing Networks section, it shows this figure:

Even in this extreme example of low reliability links, by designing multiple paths for each device, a self-organizing network can reach that level of performance by constantly choosing the path that offers the best reliability at the time. With self-organizing networks, it's important to note that site surveys are not required. Russ shared with me some best practices learned from the early wireless installations which I'll pass along to you.

The first consideration is the size of your facility. If you have a large facility like a refinery or chemical plant, the wireless field network should be scoped to a single process unit. For vertically arranged facilities like power plants or some pharmaceutical sites, the self-organizing network should be scoped to a single floor.

Next, it is extremely helpful to have a scaled drawing of the single process unit or floor where the network will be installed. In an earlier post, I discussed the creative use of Google Earth to zoom in on an outdoor facility where they didn't have scaled drawings handy. These building drawings are typically available for inside facilities, which is a good thing since the satellite photos can't see inside a building... yet!

With the scaled drawing, plot the location of wireless devices. Consider the immediate ones you want to install as well as possible future ones. Every wireless device should have multiple neighbors to provide path redundancy for higher overall communications reliability. Based on the experience gathered from hundreds of installations to date, each wireless self-organizing network should be designed with a minimum of five wireless devices to provide this path diversity.

As you look at the devices plotted on your scaled drawing, it's ideal that each device have three neighbors as potential paths of communication.

Next, consider the placement of the wireless gateway. In small networks, the smart wireless gateway should be located in the center of the network. For larger networks or installations that require the wireless gateway mounted in a control or rack room, you should build the self-organizing network around the location of the wireless gateway, closest ones first, per your plot plan. Also, remember that the gateway needs to connect the network to your host automation or asset management system using common industry communications standards like OPC, MODBUS and MODBUS TCP.

The wireless gateway should have a direct wireless connection (connected without a hop through another device) to 25% of the devices in the self-organizing network. It will still be reliable if less than 25%, but greater than 25% is optimal. You can add wireless devices or repeaters to help achieve this best practice.

During installation, add devices outward from the gateway to reach other areas in the process unit. This installation process helps you see the devices as they are being added and helps verify the robustness of the communications.

I hope sharing these best practices in addition to the PlantWeb University Wireless courses provides you the background to try a wireless field network application in your facility.

I have the honor and privilege of presenting a keynote at the 2008 ISA Marketing & Sales Summit in September in Cleveland, Ohio. My presentation will be around social media, also known as Web 2.0.

Now, unless you are a sales- or marketing-person with one of the automation suppliers or with an agency who serves them, this probably isn't a conference for you. If you are, by all means, come! The summit is about sharing marketing practices to help us do a better job of providing automation professionals with the products, services and information they need to better do their jobs.

I know that like lawyers, marketers have been on the receiving end of pointed humor, like this classic Dilbert cartoon (I was hoping I could embed the cartoon in this post but their non-commercial use terms don't seem to allow this... which reminds me of another Dilbert classic.)

Pointed-humor aside and in the spirit of listening and improvement, what would you have me convey to those attending the Marketing & Sales summit:

What are we doing that we should stop doing?

What are we not doing that we should be doing?

What else?

A clear change from traditional marketing to the world of social media is the shift from monolog to dialog. In this spirit, I invite your thoughts as comments to this post.

If you prefer to keep these thoughts confidential, send me an email, call me (+1 512.992.7641), Skype me or send me a Twitter direct message. I know there are even more social media ways to connect on this topic, but one of these should work.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

One way to reduce the sheer volume of email from those you work with is to promise to blog them. Most take this as an idle threat, so unfortunately the emails keep flowing. Here's a case where the threat is not idle, and here's the post to prove it.

The original question came in from a process manufacturer to ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan and asked him for a recommended pH probe for low pH material (1-3pH). My hopefully trusty source, the pH entry in Wikipedia, puts that on a scale with gastric acid.

Greg contacted Dave Joseph, a senior industry manager in Emerson's Rosemount Analytical Liquid business. Dave responded:

In my experience, measuring low pH values in the 1-3 range is not very difficult. Although there is a nonlinear effect called "acid error", the primary source of error is junction potential due to the high concentration of H+. This manifests as a pH reading that ramps quickly into the ballpark but may take quite some time (100 secs or more) to get to the final value. It would be common for the reading to drop from 6 to 2.4 and then tick slowly down to 2.0, for instance. A good sensor for that kind of behavior is a more open junction like our PERpH-X design that allows the potential to stabilize quickly. It would also help cut the time necessary for calibration.

A clean ISFET [Ion-sensitive field effect transistor] sensor responds quickly regardless of the temperature, so the FET is an improvement for very low temperature processes (near 0°C) where high glass impedance causes slow response and noisy readings. In practice, most pH measurement issues have to do with the reference side of the sensor, which is subject to coating, plugging, poisoning, and junction potentials. pH applications can involve many different processes and conditions. Practically all of the troublesome measurements (high temperature, caustic (high pH), steam cleaning) for glass electrodes are even more problematic for ISFETs. In a low pH stream with no other concerns, an ISFET would be expected to function as well as a glass electrode, but with no specific advantages.

Greg's follow up question was:

Are there any hydration requirements for an ISFET? My understanding is that a glass electrode depends upon a hydrated gel layer.

Dave responded:

The glass electrode does use a hydrated gel layer to produce a stable potential. An ISFET works more directly and does not need hydration to make the measurement. That means that an ISFET may recover from a dry environment faster than a glass electrode would. However, both types of electrodes require a reference with a silver/silver chloride solution of water, and the presence of water in the process is required for acceptable continuous measurement.

I thought there was some wisdom in the exchange that needed to be set free from the clutches of my email inbox. Then again, let's see if Greg or Dave ever includes me on another email!

This one was too good not to highlight. For those not familiar with the look of DeltaV controller and I/O subsystem, here's what it looks like when it's a chocolate cake:

Emerson's DeltaV team is honored to be a part of Professor Atanas Serbezov and his Advanced Process Control class at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology's Department of Chemical Engineering in celebration of completion of another successful semester.

For all the engineering students in all the great educational institutions across the globe, process manufacturers and automation suppliers look forward to those of you who choose to join our ranks!

Update: I received a note with yet another example of Rose-Hulman cake mastery, this time with the DeltaV character, Duncan. Very nice!

I mentioned submittal of two social media-based abstracts to the Emerson Exchange in an earlier post. Each year, the Emerson Exchange board members receive way more submittals than they can accept, so anyone who wants to present has to keep their fingers crossed.

The good news is that one of the two was accepted. Deb Franke and I will be presenting:

Feeding that Inner Geek

Join Deb Franke and Jim Cahill in a conversation on using the internet, high-tech gadgets, and social media technologies that will enable you to be more productive and effective in all that you do, especially in your working career.

We picked this title because it was the title one of the most visited blog posts on this site to date. And with the Emerson Exchange's hundreds of sessions to choose from, we wanted a title that might stand out.

The goal is to build on presentation we did last year, Getting the Most Value from the Internet: How New Web 2.0 Tools and Techniques Can Help You Innovate.

Social media tools continue to proliferate as people learn the value they can bring. Two examples that we did not discuss last year are Twitter and Friendfeed. Friendfeed is new and Twitter is rapidly growing. I have been looking into the utility of Twitter for people with interest in the DeltaV system, to connect and communicate directly with one another. As learning occurs along the way, I'm sharing tips with our nascent DeltaV Twitter community.

The common thread with these social media applications is that they connect people with other people who have similar interests. Our hope is that one of these interests is around our world of process automation.

One final note, we have the honor of being one of the blogs mentioned in the new book, Groundswell. Written by Forrester Research principal analysts, Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li, it helps you and your business clearly formulate your strategy with respect to social media. I just finished the book the other night, and in the spirit of the groundswell, put my review of it on Amazon.com. Hint... I liked it.

Over the past several weeks, ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan has shared a three-part series on common control myths with his readers. In the initial post in the series, Common Control Myths - Part 1, Greg offers five myths, which he then shoots down, one by one.

Three of his five involve disturbances in the process. On unmeasured disturbances, Greg offers the following myth and rebuttal:

Unmeasured disturbances are a side issue - if there were no unmeasured disturbances, control would be a non issue because you could home in on the controller output that corresponds to the desired set point for a process variable. You would just need to run some data fitting algorithm one time and the loop would be set for the life of the process. In reality, there are always unmeasured disturbances.

Often the best-laid designs on newly commissioned loops require adjustments over time as the control engineer learns about the unmeasured disturbances impacting the loop.

In the second post in the series, Greg gets deep into the equations to show the scan time effects on peak and integrated errors. Since I've forgotten more than I've remembered, I'll trust him that the math checks out... J

In the final post of the trilogy, Greg debunks control myths six through ten. These include control valve performance, pH sensors, and thermocouples versus RTDs. For example, on pH sensors, he writes:

The most accurate type of pH sensors are used most often - the most popular sensors are the ones that require the least amount of maintenance, such as references with solid electrolytes, even though these may require more time to equilibrate and have a more variable junction potential. The flowing liquid junction reference for the right materials of construction and electrolyte is generally the most accurate but the least used type of pH electrode in industry because of the need to pressurize and refill the reservoir.

If you're early in your career as an automation engineer, you definitely want to subscribe to the ModelingAndControl.com RSS feed as one of your shortcuts to rapid learning.

Update: I was a bit too hasty calling it a trilogy! Greg has unleashed Part 4 of his common control myths.

The Automation List on Control.com recently had a question about IMC Tuning for Integrated Processes. I googled around for IMC or internal model control for a good definition and found these 2002 Introduction to Robust Control lecture notes:

The Internal Model Control (IMC) philosophy relies on the Internal Model Principle, which states that control can be achieved only if the control system encapsulates, either implicitly or explicitly, some representation of the process to be controlled.

The Automation List question asked how IMC can be implemented if the process time constant, process gain, control integral and controller gain are unknown. This person did a manual step test on the drum level feedwater control valve and the drum level starts to integrate (rise.) Measuring this occurrence provides dead time, level rate of change and change in control valve position.

The questioner writes:

I know you can implement Lambda Tuning, but from what I've seen with this, you end up with a very sluggish system that responds quite poorly due to the low value of Kc (please don't comment here on 3 element control, as this is not apart of the discussion).

Am I missing something here, or have other people used different methods?

We've had several posts in the past on Lambda tuning, so I forwarded this question to Mark Coughran, a senior control engineering consultant on the Advanced Applied Technology team.

Mark notes:

Whatever method you use, it is important to understand each of the terms in the equations and the appropriate units of measure. Training is available to make clear how to measure the process dynamics, choose Lambda, and calculate the controller gain and reset. Emerson Educational Services offers the courses Process Dynamics, Control and Tuning Fundamentals (9030) and Modern Loop Tuning (9032). Tools and on-site services are also available.

Lambda tuning simply means the loop will not oscillate and you choose the speed of closed-loop response (Lambda), within some reasonable constraints. There is no reason to believe that Lambda tuning is arbitrarily "slow" or "fast", since you choose the Lambda.

ZN or Ziegler-Nichols is a method to deliberately make the loop oscillate. This is not a good idea in any process plant.

Let's end this week highlighting a new book by ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan. The book, The Funnier Side of Retirement for Engineers and People of the Technical Persuasion, is a very funny look at those entering their golden, post-work years.

When I saw this news on my DeltaV News RSS feed, I rushed up to Greg's office to see if I could get my hands on one of the books, which I did (score!) I'm a big fan of Greg's top ten lists, his marriage of humor and our technical world of process control and of course the illustrations by Ted Williams.

As Greg mentions in his post about the book, Now for Something Completely Different:

About every year since 1985, I wrote a book whether I needed to or not. Some of the books were written to entertain myself and hopefully others by adding a humorous view point to what is normally a very a serious profession.

Imagine writing a book a year for over 20 straight years... wow! And I think a few blog posts a week are tough...

For his older books where Greg has received back the copyrights, he's generously offered these free to the world on the Modeling and Control blog. You can get a sample of this humor and fun illustrations in the eBook, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Control Room.

My guess is that you'll enjoy this book whether you're approaching these golden years yourself or even if not.

Before the holidays, ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan had another set of eBooks, Centrifugal and Axial Compressor Control Student Text and Instructor's Guide. These books were originally published in 1983 and the copyrights were returned to Greg.

As described in the "About the Book" section, the text is geared for instrumentation and process control design engineers. The text describes:

...the surge phenomena and illustrates the effect of the operating conditions on surge. Covers various methods of throughput and surge feedback control. It explains the need for preprogrammed open-loop surge control and describes newly developed methods for implementation and coordination with feedback control.

Greg was recently asked by a colleague how surge control might be applied in automation systems like the DeltaV system. He responded:

DeltaV provides an excellent solution for nearly any control system that prevents surge by the manipulation of a control valve if you make the execution time of the module 0.1 to 0.2 seconds so that it is much faster than valve. Surge control valves have a response time of 1 to 5 seconds. Also, you should configure an open loop back in the DeltaV module because once a compressor gets into surge a feedback PI loop can't get it out of surge no matter how fast it is due to the flow reversals every couple of seconds. The open loop back up is simply a CALC block in DeltaV that puts the PI in ROUT and increments the surge valve position when activated. When deactivated it returns the PI to its preferred mode. The trigger for activation is a crossing of a line between the actual surge curve and the surge controller set point allowing for some error in the knowledge of the surge curve. The clear point for deactivation is a point well to the right of the surge controller set point for at least a couple of seconds.

This set of eBooks joins his other freely available eBooks:

• A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Control Room
• Biochemical Measurement and Control
• Continuous Control Techniques for Distributed Control Systems

If your process includes centrifugal or axial compressors, you may want to take a look these latest additions to the eBook library.

Engineers being the problem solvers that they are, typically enjoy a project in full execution mode. Problems must be quickly confronted and solved to keep everything moving forward. As we've mentioned in earlier posts, the part they typically like least is the upfront justification to get the projects approved in the first place.

Emerson's Pete Sharpe, a principal consultant in the Advanced Automation Services organization, shared his thoughts on automation investment justification with the readers of Automation World magazine. The article, Strengthen Company, Minimize Risk, pointed to areas of opportunity for project justification.

Pete's guidance is to look at the economic buckets your efforts in automation can influence, which boils down to increasing profits and minimizing risk. Simply put:

To increase profits, "you must either increase revenues or lower costs," he emphasizes. Revenue is a bucket on the positive side of the formula that is affected by things like throughput, yields, recoveries or product price. That means "you have to shift production toward the more valuable products, or increase yield, reduce off-spec, product losses and downgrades of product," Sharpe states. Cost-lowering considerations could involve maintenance, labor, energy, utilities or raw materials, among other areas.

Pete cites an example of looking at quality. Poor quality can lead to customer rejection, off spec and rework. Providing better quality than is specified in the contract is called "quality giveaway". It likely means additional costs are being incurred without receiving additional price for this quality. This is particularly relevant to commodity markets such as gasoline and diesel. Other potential sources of justification are in intangible costs like safety and environmental compliance.

Minimizing risk is about reducing the probability that something bad will occur in the plant's operation. These projects focus on improving reliability, safety, environmental liability, and dealing with abnormal situations. Risk can be evaluated based on the frequency and severity of historical incidents. Then appropriate application of technology and programs designed to mitigate the highest risk areas by applying such things as predictive maintenance, operator training systems or abnormal situation prevention technologies.

The key is to look for how your project will affect the throughput, production costs and total production value on an on-going basis. Ultimately, the expected financial return of the project will determine whether the project goes forward or not. The article sums this up:

...the ultimate metric for justifying investments is ROI. He notes that it includes the time value of money, and calculation of returns based on expected future cash flows from the investment.

In most companies, the management team evaluates potential projects based on the expected return and the risk associated with the investment. The projects with the highest rate of return and lowest perceived risk are those that will likely be funded. In almost all cases, the project return must exceed the manufacturer's cost of capital, which varies depending on company. Pete notes that there are exceptions where a low return, discretionary project is approved. This could be a "stay-in-business" investment decision, which ultimately is about reducing overall business risk.

Emerson technologist and ModelingAndControl.com blogger, Greg McMillan, coauthors with Solutia's Mark Sowell an article, Virtual Control of Real PH in the November issue of Control magazine. The wonderful thing about Greg's writing is that it seems to always include experienced-based rules of thumb, a lack of sugarcoating the facts, and large amounts of humor.

In this article, the authors waste no time in mentioning why we should be interested in reading the article. Most plants have pH control applications, even if in their waste-treatment areas. These areas usually have environmental compliance issues and for applications like crystallizers, fermenters, reactors, and strippers, pH control is critical.

My example of Greg not sugarcoating the facts is:

While we tend to focus on the configuration of the DCS, achieving the full potential of the pH measurement requires exceptional attention to every aspect of the system design. Deficiencies in the equipment, piping, valves or sensor selection or installation can cause the system to fail miserably.

This advice alone may save someone loads of troubleshooting time by first looking at the field equipment and installation before fiddling with the automation system's configuration and tuning.

He's also very good at simplifying the approach to pH control problem solving by helping the reader form a quick mental picture:

The name of the game with pH is to minimize the loop dead time to minimize the excursion along the highly nonlinear titration curve.

The solution described in the article is to use a virtual plant--a dynamic simulation of the waste-treatment system--based on a first-principle dynamic model of the pH system and control system configuration. These all run in the same PC. Dynamic simulations can be quite complex but here's where Greg's rules of thumb based on his experience come in. The key is to focus on simplification and attention to the details that really matter. An example of a rule of thumb:

For pH modeling for process control of environmental systems, about 20 acids and bases cover about 90% of the applications. The physical properties requirements are much less (just molecular weight, density and dissociation constants of each acid and base). The waste treatment systems are normally dilute enough so that activity coefficients are not needed.

They used the virtual plant to see if the existing fuzzy logic control could be replaced with a straightforward model predictive control (MPC) strategy. You'll have to read the article to see the full approach but the bottom line was that:

The MPC did a much better than expected job of chasing the acid concentration... We confirmed later that the production unit that was the source of most of the strong acid was having issues. A comparison of the virtual plant and actual plant control valve positions and pH response revealed there was no flow going through one of the second-stage reagent valves. The problem cleared a day after a phone call.

I had to wrap up this post with an example of Greg's ever-present humor that engineers can appreciate:

It takes more and more interesting opportunities to get weathered engineers excited. However, the almost limitless opportunities to explore advanced control ideas make us downright tingly.

If you've been fighting pH control, the article is well worth it as is the "Extra-Credit Reading" they cite.

As he announces yet another eBook now available, ModelingAndControl.com's Greg McMillan continues to share his control expertise with the world.

Greg describes the book Biochemical Measurement and Control:

When Monsanto was making the transition to a life science company, I had the opportunity to work on fermenter measurement and control for various genetically engineered products. Important opportunities identified then such as the application of mass spectrometers, dissolved carbon dioxide probes, and inferential measurements of metabolic processes have come to fruition today opening the door to more advanced process analysis and control techniques. Additionally the applications gave me a chance to apply my expertise in pH measurement and control in new ways and dig into the practical aspects of dissolved oxygen measurement and control.

As he goes on to mention, the progression of technology and new thinking prompted an updated version, New Directions in Bioprocess Modeling and Control: Maximizing Process Analytical Technology Benefits published by ISA in 2006. This book:

...provides an updated view and details on new tools for batch modeling, analysis, and control. This ISA book includes the development of neural network inferential measurements of dryer moisture by Washington University in Saint Louis and my first principle dynamic fermentor models for the National Corn to Ethanol Research Center. The book concludes with an excellent review of new technology for batch analytics by the University of Texas.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, Greg has chosen to make many of his works available as free eBooks once the copyrights are returned to him. So, for the next many years, the Bioprocess book is available for purchase from the ISA folks or in the DeltaV Bookstore, along with many other great books we've discovered along the way.

We live in great times where many with expertise make it freely available. If this expertise happens to intersect with our interests and we have some bandwidth to absorb it, we're but a mere Google search (or whatever your favorite search engine happens to be) away. It just wasn't this easy way back when!

If you're an automation professional and not already subscribed to the ModelingAndControl.com blog, you're missing some great stuff.

Greg McMillan has recently posted three "sensible sensor installation" posts:

• Sensible Sensor Installation
• Sensible Sensor Installation - Follow Up
• Sensible Sensor Installation - Tips

Greg offers his rules of thumb based on his vast plant experience for installing temperature and pH sensors. Here's an example from his initial post:

The best sensitivity from a temperature or pH sensor can generally be achieved by an installation where the tip of the thermowell or electrode is in the center of the pipeline. This is particularly important when there is a high viscosity fluid such as a polymer for temperature control or concentrated sulfuric acid reagent for pH control. For temperature, it is also desirable to maximize the insertion length in the center line to reduce the thermal conduction error from the tip to the flange. The insertion of the thermowell into an elbow affords this opportunity.

I know when I was a young systems engineer I would have really appreciated more rules of thumb to give me grounding on some of the things I needed to consider. Experience teaches these things, so any shortcuts to gain these experiences are greatly appreciated.

As I mentioned in a Web 2.0 presentation at the last Emerson Exchange, many ways are emerging to share your process automation expertise. A blog is one way, but other ways include adding/modifying entries in Wikipedia, social bookmarking with Del.icio.us, and sharing interesting posts you come across with web-based RSS readers like Google Reader.

If you've not yet taken the plunge to see what subscribing to RSS feeds is all about, see the screencast of how to subscribe to this blog, and how to import my blogroll. This is my way of helping get you jumpstarted to these rules of thumb with many automation and process industry-based blogs, including Terry and Greg's ModelingAndControl.com.

John Dolenc, a principal consulting engineer in Emerson's advanced applied technology organization whom you may recall from earlier posts, presented Estimating Benefits from Process Automation at the Emerson Exchange.

John began by discussing what types of activities are performed during a process automation modernization feasibility study. Project justification is one of the most difficult steps to complete.

Start with looking at the plant as a financial asset. Perform a financial balance across a process unit in the same manner as performing a material and energy balance. Capital enters a process unit in the raw materials, net utilities, operating expenses, and maintenance expenses. Value is added within the process unit. Capital flows out in primary and secondary products as well as the waste streams. After identifying the financial streams, identify areas that need improvement and determine whether better process automation can help.

Capital projects are justified by either increasing the revenue of the plant or by reducing the costs to manufacture the products. Revenue may be increased through increasing production capacity (if additional product can be sold), and increasing the yield of more profitable products while reducing lower grade product and waste streams. Look for capacity increases through being able to run closer to constraints by reduced process variability. Can you reduce unproductive time such as grade changeovers, off-spec blending and downtime for cleaning through better process control? Can you reduce cycle time for batch processes by better control of reaction conditions and eliminating wait time for operator actions?

Another method of increasing plant profitability is by working with the marketing and sales force to understand what your customers' value about your product. Can price be slightly increased if the product consistently meets specification and delivery schedules and emergency production is provided when needed?

Reducing costs are a big area of value creation. Some areas to look for cost reduction opportunities include increasing feedstock yield, reducing energy consumption, better use of direct and indirect labor, and limiting off-spec material, abnormal events, demurrage and maintenance.

These are the opportunities for automation project financial justification. So what are some benefit estimation methods you can employ? John mentioned the best operator method, data reduction method, and percent limit violation as three methods of estimation. The best operator method considers historically identifying key performance indicators at their optimum point. What are the "best operators" doing to make this happen? The key is to look for how to automate these best practices. Your project justification is the difference between operating at the "best operator" condition versus the historical average condition.

John went through an example of looking at batch cycle times, throwing out outliers caused by extenuating circumstances, and digging into the process automation that can be done to move from the average cycle time to the best cycle time.

He discussed the other methods, data reduction method and limit violation methods. With the latter, conceptually the results of the automation project are to reduce overall variability. This means you can run closer to your process or specification limit. This means operating set points can be set closer to these limits, thus reducing costs such as product giveaways and excess energy usage. The presentation includes some of the statistical methods to build your financial justification. John offered a rule of thumb that you would reduce standard deviation by at least 50% by improving overall control performance.

John summarized his presentation with these key points:

• Justification is difficult, but necessary to receive approval for automation projects
• Historical data collection is vital
• Build a base case
• Some "prediction" of results is necessary

I really enjoy getting the chance to present to at the Emerson Exchange. This year, I teamed up with Emerson e-Marketing manager, Deb Franke, to discuss the emergence of Web 2.0 applications and technologies. Deb and I have teamed on many initiatives over the years, including nagivating the path to make the Emerson Process Experts blog a reality.

Our presentation was entitled, Getting the Most Value from the Internet: How New Web 2.0 Tools and Techniques Can Help You Innovate. We have embedded voiceover notes in the presentation and separately in a presentation transcript.

Both sessions of the presentation were very well attended, even surprisingly, the 8 am Thursday morning session. These late-week, early morning sessions can get dicey given the catching up process with friends and acquaintances which have been known (I'm told) to carry on into the wee hours.

The premise of our discussion is that the web has been changing from a one-way monolog (Web 1.0) to dialogs or many-to-many conversations (Web 2.0). We explored two paths, information consumption and information production. From an information consumer standpoint, Deb discussed ways to be more efficient in finding the information you need to be more effective and innovative. The presentation includes short screencasts (no audio) showing how to subscribe to RSS feeds using Google Reader and how to get a jump-start in subscribing to all the automation feeds on my blogroll on the right side area of this page.

I discuss the information production path, discussing ways to un-trap the wisdom that is often locked in our email inboxes and sent items folders. One of the applications described is Del.icio.us, which also has a screencast demo.

In the spirit of contributing to those who could not attend, we've captured everything we discussed as well as the questions and answers from both sessions. These are available on an Emerson Exchange Resources page on this blog. We also include participation tips if you're ready to share your expertise with the world. If you have questions after seeing the presentation and other materials, join the conversation and add a comment.

For those planning to attend next year's event in Washington D.C., keep me posted on your Web 2.0 experiences, and perhaps we can jointly present.

As reported in the DeltaV News RSS feed recently, Automation World magazine's C. Kenna Amos wrote an article, Getting Projects Approved. I know from my days as a systems engineer, that financially justifying a capital project was not nearly as fun as executing the project. Most engineers enjoy the action of seeing their work come to life more than convincing others to approve the capital to get the project going. They also are not typically versed in the language of financial analysis.

The article captures the wisdom of Emerson's Doug White, a vice president of advanced automation services. Doug and his team often assist process manufacturers in ways to help quantify return on investment for automation and advanced automation projects.

In the article, Doug notes:

The project has to be very attractive to be funded, because it will compete with others. The project has to show a clear and compelling return on investment.

Easy enough, but the trick is how to do this. Doug recommends that engineers work with the financial group to understand their selection criteria for capital projects. Basics for most projects include cash outflow analysis and when the return on investment begins. This is the basis for the payback calculations. Also, the capital proposal should include key non-quantifiable benefits often found in health, safety, and environmental (HSE) considerations.

The closer you can tie your proposal to key organizational initiatives, the more the proposal will be noticed more than others will. When it comes to presenting your proposal:

Begin by first defining the problem, then telling them why your project is important and giving reasons why it needs to be done, he emphasizes. Then--and only then--go into financials, beginning with the most likely scenario.

Doug has captured much of his experience in a whitepaper, Calculating ROI for Automation Projects. It comprehensively goes through the components of return on invested capital and how to calculate each component. Give this whitepaper a thorough review and you will be better prepared to have that conversation with the financial group.

For those of you going to the Emerson Exchange next week in Dallas, make sure to catch Doug's short course, How To Find The Economics For Process Automation Investments that will be held Tuesday at 2:15pm and repeated Wednesday at 8am. Here's the abstract for this presentation:

This session presents realistic approaches to automation project economic analysis and justification. The viewpoint is that of the business financial analyst. Specific areas where automation affects the business results are identified and quantified.

Prolific author (examples here, here, and here to name a few) and ModelingAndControl.com blogger, Greg McMillan, continues to share his process control wisdom and expertise with the world.

This week he announced another freely available ebook, Continuous Control Techniques for Distributed Control Systems. This is the second in a series of books where the copyright has been returned to Greg after a time being held by the publisher.

Instead of burying these works in a box somewhere, Greg has chosen to make these freely available to help our current and future generations of automation and control engineers learn the craft as they search the internet and come upon these on-line works.

As he mentions in his post, this book follows in the footsteps of the first eBook, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Control Room. He also mentions another eBook is planned, Biochemical Measurement and Control.

If you are a control engineer or student of this profession you should be subscribed to the ModelingAndControl.com RSS feed to learn from one the members of the process automation hall of fame!

In an earlier post, I had mentioned that my colleague Deb Franke and I will be presenting at the Emerson Exchange (September 10-14, Dallas TX.) The topic is how new Web 2.0 tools and techniques can help you innovate (presented twice--Wednesday 3pm / Thursday 8am.)

There must be something to this topic, because I discovered that we're not alone. Emerson's Marshall Meier, a project manager for Foundation fieldbus projects involving Rosemount FF transmitters, is presenting the topic, Web 2.0 in the plant. You can bet I'll be at one of his two sessions (Tuesday 10am / Wednesday 8am.)

Marshall indicated the goal of his presentation is to introduce the audience to various Web 2.0 technologies, and give them some ideas on how those technologies could be used in a plant. Here's his submitted abstract:

In 2006, Time Magazine said YOU were the Person of the Year. "You" being one of the millions, maybe billions, of people in the world who are building Web 2.0. The web is no longer read-only medium, rather an interactive environment where the users both generate and consume the content. This workshop will introduce you to some of the most interesting Web 2.0 technologies out there.

Marshall plans to cover the definition of Web 2.0, various examples like RSS, social bookmarking, wikis, video sharing, maps, and photo sharing. These will include possible applications in plants. He'll be looking to have a very interactive session to explore other potential uses for these people-connecting technologies.

Marshall also shared that like me, he's a huge fan of RSS for its ability to bring information to him based on his interests.

An RSS search feed pointed to a Process and Control Today news item about the opening on a new Emerson European flow center. This center provides comparison, selection, final assembly, configuration, calibration, testing, support and training for quite a range of Emerson Process management flow brands including Micro Motion, Rosemount, and Brooks Instrument. The flow technologies include Coriolis, magnetic flow, vortex, thermal mass flow, and variable area meters.

The center was built to help process manufacturers primarily in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. With so many technologies, each have their advantages in different applications, it was important to have a common area where manufacturers could work with product and application experts to properly select and configure the best solution for the application.

I caught up with Emerson's Henk Verweerd who shared some highlights with me. The center, located between Arnhem and Utrecht in the Netherlands, supports seven languages, employs 275 people, and covers over 9000 square meters of floor space. In addition to the technical and application support, the team performs project and order management, repair management, and creation of documentation for projects and required regulatory agencies.

With the trend toward project modularization to decrease project schedules, the team helps instrument integrated systems for railcar, ship and truck loading/unloading, pipeline/LPG/LNG/gas metering, and proving Coriolis meters. The flow center includes four mini-plants fully instrumented with Foundation fieldbus devices to provide hand-on training for flow meters and applications, including the diagnostics these devices can provide to the automation systems.

Henk mentioned that the whole reason for the facility was to bring together experts from the various product lines to be able to work with manufacturers and quickly arrive at the best solution. It also helps provide better service, support, and input for future product improvements.

Pharmaceutical Technology magazine published an interesting article by Emerson's Bob Lenich and Christie Deitz. The article, A Look at 30 Years of Change in Pharmaceutical Automation, recounts the changes affecting Life Science manufacturers from the late 1970s though today. I joined the world of process automation in the early 80s as a summer systems engineering intern in offshore oil and gas production and this article brought back some memories of the amazing changes we've seen.

I'll highlight some items from the article to see if it generates any nostalgic thoughts for you.

Although the distributed control system came along in the mid-70s, Bob and Christie note that most life science companies used pneumatic and single-loop electronic controllers. Data was collected manually or with circular and strip charts.

With growing U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations through the late 70s and early 80s, the DCS began to be seen by life science manufacturers as a tool to help comply.

Batch-based automation systems, the first one being the PROVOX system, came out in the early-to-mid 80s to help with sequencing, failure handling, parallel unit operations, and the creation of recipes.

Just a few years before I recall a little collaborative effort between IBM and Microsoft being introduced to the market (wow a 4.77MHz CPU!) This would have some impact in our industry in the following decade as commercially available technologies (COTS) were incorporated.

Toward the later part of the 80s and into the 90s, standards began to play a larger role. ISA-88 (S88), a batch automation standard was important to life science manufacturers. The digital busses including Foundation fieldbus were developing, and Microsoft operating systems began to make their appearance in systems like the DeltaV system. For communications, the OLE for Process Control (OPC) standard became the way to connect Microsoft-based clients and servers--a big improvement over earlier generation DDE communications technologies.

Automation systems became increasingly modular with class-based configurations. These technologies would help the trend toward more modular construction techniques that brought production on-line quicker compared with prior construction and engineering methods.

Regulations continued to advance to try to address concerns around system, production and data management through the balance of the 90s. Efforts began on the ISA-95 (S95) standard to better define the integration of enterprise and control systems.

These regulations had a positive impact in building competency around data security, record security, lot tracking, and overall batch management. The downside was that it placed the focus of life science manufacturers on meeting regulations rather than continually improving their manufacturing operations compared with other industries.

The FDA's Process Analytical Technologies (PAT) initiative addressed thi