Advanced Process Control EngineerAdvanced Process Control (APC) engineering changes with advances in computer control technology. While regulatory controls do the work of maintaining heat balances, advanced controls work with mass and heat balances for the best performance and quality in the petrochemical industry.
In the 1980s, the multivariable predictive controller, or MVPC came along. It provided both feedforward and feedback control and was highly effective for complex interactions. During that time, the computing requirements made it necessary to use powerful mainframe computers connected to a plant's communication link. But it opened up many possibilities for the development of related technologies. Models to infer the required composition of the stream ranged from simple correlations to equations derived from first principles of chemical engineering.
Expert systems technology is based on capturing knowledge of the best operators and transforming data into useful information using artificial intelligence processes. It has been successful in the oil refinery industry with start up and shut down applications, and monitoring of emergency and abnormal conditions.
In more recent years, MVPC applications have expanded into the thousands, and the Advanced Process Control Engineer is expected to have a comprehensive knowledge about control systems specs and design issues. He or she provides troubleshooting and support for process control-related operational and maintenance problems in the petrochemical field. They must provide information to operations and plant maintenance workers with the necessary system technical support. They are responsible for design, configuration, and implementation of Emergency Shutdown Systems.
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