A call came in the other day from a customer asking about replacing some legacy operator workstations and a primary domain controller server. He wanted to know if it would be possible to use Microsoft Windows 8 Professional or Server 2012 as the operating systems with the new workstations and primary domain controller, so he can get the most out of the longevity of the new software.

After further research, I could find no reason not to leverage Server 2012 on the new primary domain controller. I checked with the primary control vendor supporting this particular customer, and they saw no reason not to use Server 2012 on the primary domain controller.
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You’ve seen the equations, but have you thought about how those elements work together? Part 2: Adding integral and derivative to the mix.

Last week we started with proportional. Now let’s look at the next part of the equation, the integral component:

The most striking (and scariest) part of this equation is the big integral sign in the middle. If you’ve had high school calculus, you think to yourself, “I’ve got this. Integrals don’t scare me. I just need to find the area under the curve from time zero to time t of the error function.”

But, this is the real world.
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May 30, 2013

12 p.m. EST (9 a.m. PST)

Brought to you by the ISA and MAVERICK Technologies

Learn how to whip your alarm system into shape! Two of the industry’s top alarm management experts will share their insight with you in this exclusive (and free!) webinar. These are real engineers presenting real solutions and real results.

Topics Include:

• Approaches for new and existing systems
• Seven steps to a highly effective alarm system
• Alarm management justification
• An overview of ISA-18.2, the alarm management standard

The Presenters:

• Bill R. Hollifield, principal alarm management and HMI consultant at PAS
• Paul Berwanger, principal abnormal situation management consultant and project manager at MAVERICK Technologies

 

Reserve your seat now, and you’ll receive “Alarm Management Best Practices: Highly Condensed,” the first chapter of Bill R.
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You’ve seen the equations, but have you thought about how those elements work together? Part 1: The basic concepts and proportional control.

Most process control engineers have been exposed to the basic equation in a form that looks something like this:

More than you want to swallow in one bite? Let’s break this down into the major components:

 
Output: u(t)  is the output of the controller at the end of the scan. If the output of the controller is a valve, then the output is the valve position that the controller is requesting after it has seen the inputs.
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Safety. People. Business. Technology. In the world of automation, they’re all connected.

In today’s complex automation environments, decisions made and actions taken in one area, such as migrating to a new technology, can sometimes have adverse and unforeseen affects in others, ranging from higher total cost of ownership to concerns over employee training and plant safety.

Organizations that take an integrated approach to process management and operational improvement—one that proactively incorporates the needs and requirements of safety, people, business, and technology—are more capable of fully leveraging the great power of automation and achieving positive, predictable results in all areas.
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