Process control reliability: the key to investing in your infrastructure

Area of Science:

• Industrial Engineering
• Process Control
• Pulp and Paper Manufacturing

Background:

• Capital expenditures for process control infrastructure require rigorous evaluation.
• Optimizing capital effectiveness is essential for industrial operations.
• Existing infrastructure reliability impacts overall mill performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present an approach for evaluating process control infrastructure expenditures.
• To demonstrate the economic impact of process control equipment reliability.
• To introduce the Control Infrastructure Health Assessment (CIHA) procedure.

Main Methods:

• Development and description of the Control Infrastructure Health Assessment (CIHA) procedure.
• Analysis based on the economic impact of process control equipment reliability.
• Integration with Life Cycle Costing (LCC) principles.

Main Results:

• The CIHA procedure provides a framework for rigorous evaluation.
• Economic impacts of equipment reliability were quantified for a specific case.
• Data and findings from the case study are presented.

Conclusions:

• The CIHA method enables rigorous analysis of infrastructure investments.
• Evaluating equipment reliability is key to optimizing capital effectiveness.
• The approach links reliability assessment to life cycle costing for informed decisions.