While many control loops are easy to tune and present almost no control problems, a few control loops can be very problematic and never seem to control right. These loops exhibit process control problems like oscillations, sluggish response, and large deviations from set point. Control engineers and technicians can spend many hours or even days trying to improve the performance of these challenging control loops, but the results often remain unsatisfactory.

This presentation explores various reasons why the optimization of some control loops can be very challenging, and explains how to get the best performance from these loops. It covers several problems originating from within and outside the control. Then it presents the appropriate corrective actions to take for solving each of the problems and improving control performance.

About the Presenter

Jacques Smuts is the founder and principal consultant at OptiControls Inc., and has 20 years of experience in process control and loop optimization. He is an expert in his field and has optimized thousands of control loops and solved control problems in a wide range of processes. Jacques is a strong advocate for improving process control and has developed several process control training seminars and delivered them to hundreds of engineers and technicians. He has developed controller tuning and control loop performance monitoring software that is being used in process plants all over the world. Jacques is a licensed professional engineer, and a member of ISA. He also writes a controls blog.