Future directions of R & D in the process industries

Abstract

The process industries in the Western World have moved from a position of power and wealth in the 1960s to a struggle for survival in the 1990s. Part of this at least can be attributed to a complacent belief in the economies of scale and an unwillingness to invest in emerging technologies. Recently there has been a reawakening; companies are cutting costs and repositioning themselves in the market place. In parallel, there has been a realisation that this is not enough and that modern control technology has much to offer. Recent developments in process control are having a dramatic effect on process operations. Techniques such as model-based predictive control, inferential measurement and multivariate SPC are becoming well-established. The emergence of modelling based on ‘intelligent’ methods such as neural networks and genetic algorithms underpin some of the advances. The benefit of effecting integrated plant design has been amply demonstrated and the capital productivity which results is additional to operational productivity improvement. Use of computers is fundamental to all of these advances. Advances in measurement technology are also striking and many lessons can be learned from progress in other fields, such as the motor industry where extensive use of cheap sensors and on-board computers for monitoring and control has transformed the motor car in terms of comfort, reliability and economy although the basic design has not fundamentally changed since the early days. In this paper it is argued that the return on investment of the innovative application of control and measurement technologies is very large. The more forward-looking companies are investing heavily. There is still further potential in some of the ideas emerging from academia and other industries. All of this will have a fundamental effect on the future shape of process control and how control engineers will be employed in the future.