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Version 5
INTUNE+ Loop Optimization Software
INTUNE+ Loop Optimization Software is a plant management and process
control predictive maintenance tool that combines process control monitoring
with powerful diagnostic and PID loop tuning / optimization tools, including:
- Comprehensive performance analysis
- Customized diagnostics for plant-specific indices
- Web-based reporting
and event notification customized for engineers, operators, and managers
- Automatic, adaptive, model-based,
and offline tuning
INTUNE+ can report on any Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that the end
user requires. You can champion your process control strategy based on:
energy reduction; increasing productivity; more consistent product quality;
increasing plant engineering productivity; and supporting continuous
improvement.
With INTUNE+, you can finally complete your process control predictive
maintenance program by going beyond the device level. Differentiate between
hardware and tuning problems with functional, flexible, and customizable
tools that truly put you in control.
ControlSoft has generated this revolutionary new software as an integral
part of our Process Navigator. The INTUNE+ software
is the foundation of ControlSoft's partnership to improve plant
operations, maintenance, and engineering productivity.
Overview
INTUNE+ is a non-intrusive plant management and process
control predictive maintenance tool that combines process control monitoring
with powerful diagnostic and tuning features to help companies achieve
their goals in any of five core areas:
- Increasing plant productivity
- Reducing energy consumption
- Improving consistency of product quality
with less waste
- Increasing plant engineering and maintenance productivity
- Supporting
continuous improvements, such as with Six Sigma
Statistics
New to INTUNE+ are more than 80 standard process measures
with real-time moving window analysis and condition-based assessment.
Much more than just a number cruncher that pulls data from a historical
file, the INTUNE+ performance indices feature allows you to start and
stop calculations based on shifts or batches, reset error calculations
based on operator mode changes, or trigger entire sets of calculations
based on alarm states—all
in real time. The conditioning triggers can be based on any INTUNE
or I/O tag addresses that can be read via INTUNE's OPC client.
The
real-time analysis uses moving windows customizable to user-specified
length (seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months), ensuring
the calculations use the most up-to-date information. And, since INTUNE
also stands as its own OPC server, it's no problem to connect other
OPC clients to INTUNE's rich assortment of assessment indices.
With INTUNE, you get intelligent process assessment that is customized
to your specific needs for each and every process loop.
Custom Key Performance indicators (KPI's) and Diagnostics
To complement its standard statistics feature, INTUNE+ also provides
a diagnostic scripting tool for the creation of user-defined metrics
and KPI's. This flexible scripting tool allows you to turn raw data
and statistics into useful metrics that managers can use to optimize
their process control.
Customer feedback: "The INTUNE+ software
is very useful. There are many products that mine data but none that
evaluate the data." This
data evaluation is what makes INTUNE+ much more than an HMI or
historian program. INTUNE+ is specifically designed to help plant
managers optimize process control.
With the scripting feature you can:
- Differentiate between hardware and
tuning problems
- Automatically identify poorly performing loops
- Calculate the economic
impact of poor performance in terms of real dollar value
- Track raw material
waste, excess fuel, and energy costs
- Benchmark various measures of product
quality and consistency based on operating conditions
Each script gives the user complete freedom in its
development and design, using up to ten input addresses from any INTUNE+,
I/O, or user-defined tag. Script outputs can be floats, integers, Boolean
values, strings, or bitmap images that are easily incorporated into
INTUNE+'s customizable, web-based reports or can be used elsewhere
as special event triggers, reset or fault bits, or alarms. With so
much flexibility in their creation and design, the INTUNE+ custom
performance measures are a tremendous support to any process control
predictive maintenance scheme.
This sample script includes custom functions for calculating
process waste, energy cost,
loop tuning quality, and assessment indices
for the specific process.
KPI Trending
Once critical performance info is calculated, INTUNE+ provides a variety of ways to visualize and understand these metrics. One way that INTUNE+ makes metrics visible and understandable is by trending them over time with the KPI Trending feature.
Now plant personnel can track higher level unit and process performance information in real time as easily as they track process variables in the HMI or historian. This trending module is a powerful analysis tool for any tech, engineer, or manager; it provides a user-friendly alternative to performing hours of side-by-side report comparisons.
Examples of metrics that can be tracked include
- individual control loop health
- overall unit or process area variation
- automation improvement indices
- availability factors
- reliability indices
- productivity or capacity indices
- recipe modifications
- batch statistics or any user-defined metrics
Below is a look at the KPI Trending module in action. Its adjustable scaling and color-coded labels for all trends make identifying and tracking key performance areas an easy task, not a complex procedure.
(Click graphic for larger image.)
Automatic Event Notification
The customizable capabilities of the Event Server tool provide
users a crucial element in process control predictive maintenance. Notify
operators, engineers, maintenance personnel, shift managers, and/or plant
managers via email the instant an alarm is reached or another user-defined
event occurs. Automatically record the event to your system's event
log while notifying the appropriate employees. Each event is user-specified,
and the initiating address can be read from any INTUNE or I/O tag.
The Event Server realizes its greatest potential when used as part
of a predictive maintenance scheme that includes notifying appropriate
personnel before alarm levels are reached, when loop quality becomes
less than acceptable, or when the costs of energy or raw material waste
exceed certain pre-defined limits. Customize the event notification
so that the right personnel (maintenance, operators, engineers, or
managers) get the right notifications without receiving extra clutter.
Customized reports can also be generated and sent along with the email
notification. As with the Diagnostic Script tool, the Event Server
lets you fully customize your INTUNE+ software to truly put you in
control of your process.
Sample configuration dialog for the Event Server.
Tuning and Simulation
To help correct loop quality problems, INTUNE+
retains its core structure of robust Tuning Tools,
including its auto tuning, heuristic-based adaptive tuning, offline
data tuning, and offline model-based tuning. Also included is a PID
comparison tool, along with a variety of online and offline process
and PID simulation features. See INTUNE Tuning Tools section below for more details on these
powerful problem correction tools.
Web Based Performance Reporting
Tying all the performance improvement functionality together
is INTUNE+ reporting, which features customizable, web-based reports
that provide what you need, when you need it—for corporate engineers,
plant managers, or maintenance teams.
- Automatically generate reports that
indicate poorly performing loops for maintenance personnel.
- Create in-depth
statistical analysis reports for engineers who want to know the gritty
details for all loop operations.
- Generate bottom-line reports for managers
that, in a few key indices, indicate which loops or areas are operating
efficiently, which are not, and the real cost financial impact on
the plant.
Reports can also be customized to visually indicate tuning quality
or plant performance, saving busy managers and operators from the hassle
of decoding obscure numbers and sorting through statistics. INTUNE+
also has a web report server, which allows managers access to all reports
generated for a plant or corporation, with the ability to sort reports
by date and time, category, or keyword.
Bottom-Line Benefits
With INTUNE+, you can finally complete your process
control predictive maintenance program by going beyond the device level.
As mentioned by Ali Haji-Valizadeh, ControlSoft's Technology
Development Manager, in the December 2005 issue of Plant Services
magazine, "Looking
at loops as a cut on automation hierarchy and as a component in a plant-wide
structure can help to devise an effective predictive maintenance strategy."
With INTUNE+, the complete dynamics of the process control loop become
an asset to be managed, not just discrete valves and devices.
By extending the reach of predictive maintenance, INTUNE+ helps plant
managers get their plants in control and keep them in control.
- Benchmark
loop and plant performance with the diagnostic and reporting features.
- Use
the performance monitoring and assessment tools to not only indicate
gaps between current and goal performance, but to identify and prioritize
the root causes of process control problems.
- Differentiate between hardware
and tuning problems.
- Automatically identify poorly performing loops.
- Use maintenance resources
more effectively.
- Support Six Sigma strategies.
Using INTUNE+'s powerful and flexible features, managers can
realize the benefits of improved product yield, reduced energy consumption,
increased product throughput, better plant startup times, improved
product quality and consistency, and more effective use of manpower. In
short, INTUNE+ is process control software that truly puts your plant
in your control.
Contact ControlSoft for more examples of
the benefits of our INTUNE+ Process Navigation.
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