Process ImprovementProcess Improve — Reduce Steam Consumption, Flaring, Emissions, Alarms and More
Process Improve is a plant-optimization consulting service in which PiControl studies your process using process flow diagrams and P&IDs, then works with your engineers and operators to design and develop solutions inside your existing DCS or PLC, cutting steam losses, flaring, emissions, and alarm counts while extending valve life and automating startups and shutdowns.
What a Process Improve Engagement Includes
What a Process Improve Engagement Includes
PiControl process control consulting experts review your plant's details, then design and develop solutions inside your existing DCS or PLC to increase plant profits and efficiency. No two engagements look identical because the scope follows whichever combination of the goals below matters most to your operation.
- Reduce steam consumption or steam losses from venting.
- Reduce reflux and reboiler duties in distillation.
- Reduce emissions — NOx, SOx, and government permit limits — and reduce penalties from permit violations.
- Increase control valve life by making valves move less and more smoothly.
- Reduce alarms generated and improve alarm management performance indicators.
- Run the plant smoother with more automation to relieve operator stress and workload.
- Automate startup and shutdown of the entire plant.
- Apply new and novel Artificial Intelligence techniques to improve plant operation.
- Reduce heat loss in furnaces and optimize excess oxygen in flue stacks.
- Optimize PID tuning for fast, complex compressor surge controllers and improve compressor protection.
- Reduce flaring of gases and increase product recovery.
- Minimize and optimize consumption of expensive additives or secondary raw materials.
- Generate early-warning alerts and alarms so operators can take proactive action.
- Determine, capture, and display the first-out event after equipment shutdown using pattern recognition.
Compressor surge control is one of the more demanding items on that list, and it draws directly on the same closed-loop tuning methods behind PiControl's dedicated PID tuning consulting engagement.
ROI and Bottom-Line Impact
Process Improve engagements target the losses inside normal operation — steam vented instead of used, reboiler duty spent past spec, gas flared instead of recovered, emissions running close to permit limits — and since every fix runs inside the existing DCS or PLC, the gains show up without a new system to operate or maintain.
Emissions work compounds the benefit — cutting NOx and SOx toward permit limits lowers both environmental impact and violation risk — while alarm reduction and smoother valve movement lower operator workload and maintenance cost in a different direction.
Gas flaring reduction. Gas that would otherwise be flared and lost is instead recovered as saleable product, so the improvement pays for itself out of material that was previously being burned off rather than sold.
Startup/shutdown automation. These periods carry the highest operator workload and the greatest exposure to upsets, so automating the sequence — together with early-warning alerts and first-out capture after a shutdown — gives operators more time to act before a small deviation becomes a bigger one.
How We Work
PiControl studies your process using P&IDs and works with your engineers and operators to identify which improvement areas apply and in what order, then designs and develops the solution inside your existing DCS or PLC — no new hardware or parallel system to keep running.
Because the work runs on the control system already in place, it fits alongside other PiControl engagements — a plant already running a PID tuning consulting engagement can extend the same DCS- or PLC-resident approach into emissions, alarm, or flaring improvements without a new platform.
- Independent of your control system vendor — solutions are designed for the DCS or PLC already running your plant.
- Scoped from a preliminary meeting where PiControl reviews your process goals before proposing a solution.
Industries We've Delivered This In
PiControl has delivered these results in plants worldwide — olefins, aromatics, chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, paper, mining and excavation, oil refining, polymer, electric power, compressors, boilers and turbines, shipbuilding, and automotive — many sitting within the broader petrochemicals footprint PiControl also serves.
The engineering approach carries across every process: study the PFDs and P&IDs, work with the plant's own engineers and operators, and deliver the solution inside the control system already in place.
Flared Gas Recovered as Saleable Product
One of the most direct wins in a Process Improve engagement: gas that would otherwise be flared and lost is instead recovered as product, delivered like every other improvement inside your existing DCS or PLC with zero new hardware to install or maintain.
How Process Improve Delivers Results
A four-step approach for every Process Improve engagement — from studying your P&IDs to delivering plant-wide benefit inside your existing DCS or PLC.
Study the Process
PiControl engineers study your process using process flow diagrams and P&IDs before proposing anything, so every recommendation that follows is grounded in how your plant actually runs.
Setup a Preliminary Meeting to Improve Your Plant
Ready to reduce steam consumption, flaring, emissions, or alarms, and run your plant smoother? Get a demo and a PiControl engineer will review your process goals and outline how a study of your PFDs and P&IDs turns into a solution built inside your existing DCS or PLC.