Mointoring trends in process performance

The quality of any process control system is norammly assessed by the ability of the product produced to fulfil its intended function.

The ability to refine or improve the process relies on the capability to measure and monitor the different variables within the process to evaluate the effect of any introduced changes.

Traditionally, it has only bee practical to collect these measurments as a reaction to a problem or during (say) an anual maintenace activity.

Products are now available that enable (at modest cost) to conbtinually monitor a process all day and every day.

The results of such an activity can be stored locally on a floppy disk at the instrument and then manually transported, or they can be logged directly to the point of assessment for subsequent analysis.

The alteer situation is now possible due to the emergence of web-enabaled data monitoring instruments.

At one level these instruments can be considered to be chart recorders without paper or graphical display, but with sophisticated data management capabilities.

Using the local intranet or the internet, these can regularly report information to a common location, where analysis by industry standard Microsoft Excel or Acess or vendors' proprietary packages can show trends in process performance before they become line-stopping issues.

Enquiry No 76

Eurotherm is based in Durrington, Worthing, UK. www.eurotherm.co.uk

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