CC-98-137 CITGO’s Experience with Controller Performance Assessment

Description:

This paper describes a systematic assessment and monitoring procedure for one of the forgotten but most valuable refinery assets - PID feedback controllers. Given that a typical refinery unit has hundreds of regulatory control loops and that many loops perform poorly, the potential economic opportunity is staggering. This is exacerbated by current industrial practice that relies on increasingly limited resources. This issue is not about tuning or loop tuners but rather a systematic identification of those loops that require maintenance.