Multicriteria Ammonia Plant Assessment for the Advanced Process Control Implementation

Rehabilitation of control systems or implementation of Advanced Process Control (APC) in any large scale industrial installation poses several challenges. First of all, the implementation process has to meet stringent safety regulations. Moreover, it has to minimize normal production violation. All human, technology and control system risks need to be identified and a mitigation plan has to be prepared. Once the implementation limitations are fulfilled the installation requires to be prepared. The plant needs to be comprehensively assessed. All APC project related aspects, like control system or process instrumentation must be reviewed. Furthermore existing installation performance has to be measured for further justification of project results. The paper presents authorial assessment methodology aiming at the installation preparation before APC implementation. It is obvious that any supervisory control helps only when the underlying process, infrastructure and regulatory base control operates properly. Any performance malfunctioning within plant equipment or base control logic misfit limits, even the most sophisticated APC. The paper presents developed and practically adopted comprehensive multicriteria assessment procedure, which prepares the large scale chemical installation for APC supervisory control upgrade. Proposed procedure is accompanied with identified implementation risks and their mitigation plan.