Nowadays, manufacturing and chemical plants are increasingly efficient and more complex. Due to global competition, tighter government regulations, pollutions laws and the need to operate more efficiently, there are more control loops now in plants than before. Modern manufacturing and chemical plants can have anywhere as many as 5 000 PID and advanced process control (APC) loops. The newer and more efficient plants lead to more complex PID loop process dynamics, more interactions and more nonlinearities increasing the challenge for PID control loop tuning and advanced process control (APC) design and optimization. Model predictive controllers (MPC) are widely used in chemical, petrochemical, paper, power plant, oil refining and other similar industries, where their models are the heart and soul of the MPC system. For successful and effective primary and advanced process control (APC) in any industry, two areas are critical: 

• System identification, essential for optimal PID control loop tuning and advanced process control (APC) optimization.
• PID and advanced process control (APC) design and optimization which helps chemical plants to run better, more smoothly and increases production rate and plant profits.

Many experienced process control and chemical engineers and DCS / PLC technicians have retired. Many new, young and inexperienced process control and chemical engineers, DCS / PLC technicians and control room operators have entered manufacturing and chemical plants. Lack of process control and chemical engineering knowledge and experience, and the lack of modern, effective and practical process control tools has resulted in many missed opportunities in maximizing plant performance and profits, and reducing plant shutdowns and equipment failures. This can result in loss of 2 to 4 % profits, sometimes as high as 10 %.  

Moreover, as time goes by, process conditions, equipment performance and goals of the plant can change significantly which can result with slow or unstable and oscillatory PID and advanced process control (APC) performance. This can produce reduction in product quality, make products sub-prime or off-spec, prevent production rate maximization, increase air pollution emissions, cause unplanned plant upsets and shutdowns, wear-and-tear equipment. Therefore, PID control loops and advanced process control (APC) systems need to be monitored continuously by automatic online monitoring software tools which can alert about their performance and control quality. 

Therefore, proper education, training and process control simulation, tuning and optimization technology play a key role in satisfying technological, economic and environmental constraints. To address this current gap partner company PiControl Solutions LLC has developed several state-of-the-art software products, as presented below.