Performance monitoring for process control and optimisation

Over the last two decades many oil and petrochemical companies have installed Advanced Process Control (APC) and Closed Loop Optimisers in their plants. Within Shell for example there have been about 550 APC projects and 30 Closed Loop Optimisers installed that add 430 million Euro's per annum to the bottom line. Potentially this can grow to 700 million Euro's per annum. For the coming years the challenge will be to maintain the optimum performance of the existing applications while at the same time implementing new projects. With skilled resources remaining limited, it means that more innovative steps have to be taken. With this background, Shell has developed a number of methodologies to monitor the performance of controllers and optimisers. The key objective is to benchmark the performance against 'best in class' performance, identify non-compliances, and diagnose possible problems (tuning, modelling, etc.) so that the appropriate corrective actions can be taken.