Technical Archives | ISA Interchange

How to Use Plant-Wide Feedforward for More Flexible and Efficient Production

The following tip is from the ISA book by Greg McMillan and Hunter Vegas titled 101 Tips for a Successful Automation Career, inspired by the ISA Mentor Program. This is Tip #101, and was written by Greg. The pressure to reduce inventories, coupled with changing market...

What are the Benefits of Identifying Deadtime and Ramp Rate?

The following tip is from the ISA book by Greg McMillan and Hunter Vegas titled 101 Tips for a Successful Automation Career, inspired by the ISA Mentor Program. This is Tip #89. In Tip #70, we learned that deadtime was the key to loop performance. The Control Talk...

How to Determine the Health of an Industrial pH Glass Electrode

The following tip is from the ISA book by Greg McMillan and Hunter Vegas titled 101 Tips for a Successful Automation Career, inspired by the ISA Mentor Program. This is Tip #86. There is not a whole lot of current information on the response time of pH electrodes....

How to Use an Adjustable Flow Ratio and Feedforward Summer to Optimize Flow Measurement

The following tip is from the ISA book by Greg McMillan and Hunter Vegas titled 101 Tips for a Successful Automation Career, inspired by the ISA Mentor Program. This is Tip #93 If you look at a process flow diagram, you quickly realize that the flows are designed to...

How to Use External-Reset Feedback for Cascade Control

The following tip is from the ISA book by Greg McMillan and Hunter Vegas titled 101 Tips for a Successful Automation Career, inspired by the ISA Mentor Program. This is Tip #95. The value of the external-reset feedback feature in PID controllers is becoming...

Use Signal Characterization in the DCS to Linearize the Installed Flow Characteristic of a Valve

The following tip is from the ISA book by Greg McMillan and Hunter Vegas titled 101 Tips for a Successful Automation Career, inspired by the ISA Mentor Program. This is Tip #84. Signal characterization to linearize valve installed flow characteristic has a bad...

How to Use Valve Position Control to Optimize Process Efficiency and Capacity

The following tip is from the ISA book by Greg McMillan and Hunter Vegas titled 101 Tips for a Successful Automation Career, inspired by the ISA Mentor Program. This is Tip #97. There are many opportunities for process optimization by valve position control (VPC)....

How to Achieve Process Simulation Fidelity

The following tip is from the ISA book by Greg McMillan and Hunter Vegas titled 101 Tips for a Successful Automation Career, inspired by the ISA Mentor Program. This is Tip #89. he best way to classify process simulators is to look at the original intent of the...

How to Determine the Health of an Industrial pH Reference Electrode

The following tip is from the ISA book by Greg McMillan and Hunter Vegas titled 101 Tips for a Successful Automation Career, inspired by the ISA Mentor Program. This is Tip #87. The reference electrode should provide a fixed reference potential and a path of...

Use Middle Signal Selection to Improve pH Measurement Reliability

The following tip is from the ISA book by Greg McMillan and Hunter Vegas titled 101 Tips for a Successful Automation Career, inspired by the ISA Mentor Program. This is Tip #88, and was written by Greg. Biopharmaceutical batches are often worth more than a million...