While PID controllers enable the efficient regulation of complex production processes, the performance of control loops at a typical paper mill often leaves much to be desired.
For some, the challenges are the sheer quantity of loops, and identifying poor performers, as PIDs often number in the thousands. For others, the difficulties are isolating root causes and applying issue-appropriate corrective actions. Putting these considerations aside, very few practitioners understand either how their control loops are performing relative to others in the industry — whether better or worse — or what the differences may be costing them.
Control Station's PlantESP™ Loop Performance Monitoring solution has introduced new process optimization offerings with its recent introduction of System Health Monitoring (SHM) and the Overall Controller Effectiveness (OCE) metric. These innovative offerings equip manufacturers with valuable insights for assessing and enhancing the performance of PID control loops, leading to improved operational efficiency.
System Health Monitoring: Proactive Oversight for Optimal Performance
The SHM service offers a proactive approach to monitoring the health of PlantESP deployments. By leveraging intelligence captured by PlantESP, SHM provides daily reports that assess server health, infrastructure integrity, and control performance. This includes evaluations of system status, database connectivity, and identification of misconfigured or inactive loops and tags. Such comprehensive oversight ensures that potential issues are identified and addressed promptly, maintaining the system's optimal functionality.
System Health Monitoring dashboard
Overall Controller Effectiveness: A Unified Metric for Control Performance
A cornerstone of the SHM offering is its use of the OCE metric, a normalized measure formulated by Control Station to evaluate the performance of PID control loops. Drawing inspiration from the methodology applied to Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), OCE integrates factors representative of a controller’s availability, performance, and quality to provide a singular, quantitative assessment of effectiveness. This holistic view enables manufacturers to easily benchmark performance and track improvements over time.
Overall Controller Effectiveness (OCE) graphic
Benchmarking and Continuous Improvement
The OCE metric facilitates benchmarking at multiple levels — individual loops, unit operations, plants, and even entire production fleets. Subscribers to the SHM service receive tactical monthly reports that detail performance while documenting opportunities for improvement and recommending corrective actions. These insights empower process engineers and operations teams to prioritize actions that will have the most significant impact on control performance and mill economics, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and alignment with strategic performance objectives.
PlantESP – Heatmap
The innovation behind Control Station’s Overall Controller Effectiveness metric represents a significant advancement in process analytics, and the company’s introduction of System Health Monitoring as a complementary service equips manufacturers with much-needed guidance. By providing manufacturers with detailed, actionable insights into their PID control loop performance, these offerings combine to empower more informed decision-making and targeted improvements. Through benchmarking, they permit mill staff to correlate controller performance directly with the revenue and cost centers that drive plant profitability.
OCE Site by Site Comparison
As pulp and paper and other process industries continue to prioritize efficiency and reliability, the adoption of such comprehensive monitoring solutions will become increasingly instrumental in achieving and maintaining world-class operational standards. Visit Control Station at booth #645 during TAPPICon 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to learn more about PlantESP and the company’s process analytics and optimization offerings.
About Control Station
Control Station empowers process manufacturers to increase production efficiency and throughput. The company’s software-based solutions actively monitor and optimize plant-wide control loop performance.
The company’s products are both highly innovative and award-winning. PlantESP™ is the leading CLPM solution for identifying and isolating issues that negatively affect control loop performance. Control Station’s portfolio of LOOP-PRO™ products is recognized as the process industry’s leading solution for PID controller tuning. It is the only controller tuning software that accurately models oscillatory and noisy process data.
Control Station’s solutions are licensed to leading process manufacturers worldwide and they are available direct from Control Station and through its network of distribution partners. The company is headquartered in the United States.
www.controlstation.com
