Solomon’s Worldwide Advanced Process Control Performance Analysis (APC Study) allows you to answer such questions as whether your unit feed and product variability are out of line or about normal for the industry, whether improvements in process control are really justified, whether your furnace controls stack up against the best, and what hard dollar benefits could be achieved through improved process control, among many others.
With results from this study, you are able to determine whether you need an upgrade or simply re-tune your controls and where to focus your efforts to improve stability to remain competitive in a rapidly changing environment. Refer to the following text or download the appropriate brochure for additional details.
You can learn more about the study by downloading the APC Study brochure or contacting the Study Manager, Jon Stroup, at +1.972.739.1726 or via email at Jon.Stroup@Solomononline.com.
We know that process control is the art of drawing straight lines on strip charts where variability is the enemy. However, with frequent changes in variables such as feed rate and feed composition, it can be difficult to line out the process to achieve smooth operations at optimal yield. Solomon’s APC Study helps you determine where the variability occurs and answers the overarching question of whether you need advanced control or if you are already maximizing profits with your current program.
The APC Study examines your refinery’s process stability and profit maximization levels in terms of:
| • | Regulatory Control | • | Advanced Process Control (APC) | • | Online Analyzers and Inferential Model |
Determine whether your refinery needs APC or instead has specific process stability problems that can be solved with little or no investment.
This study will give you insight to:
| • | See the gap analysis of the performance level of your existing controls investments for each process unit to the industry leaders. |
| • | Set achievable, realistic goals for performance through a non-vendor, non-biased, third party study based on actual unit performance data that will indentify where control investments are actually justified. |
| • | Discover the top reasons APC has historically failed on each refinery unit type so you can avoid those problems in your planned projects. |
| • | Learn which instruments and control applications are most often applied by industry leaders on each refining unit type. |
Example APC Study Output Graph
By looking at feed rate variablity, furnace inlet temps, and API variability, we can tell you what is causing inconsistency in your processes while the variability reduction ratio tells you how good your process control systems are handling disturbances.
