A consortium of companies and universities has recently completed half of a process control research and development program to develop process control systems to handle unexpected situations and process upsets. The programs will cost $16 million.
The Abnormal Situation Management (ASM) consortium, formed in 1992, is working on a four-phase program called the Abnormal Event Guidance Information System (Aegis). The system will improve control over aberrant process events, which are estimated to cost U.S. processing companies $10 billion/year.
ASM is led by Honeywell Inc. and its members include: Amoco Corp., BP Oil Co., Chevron Corp., Exxon Corp., Mobil Oil Corp., Nova Chemicals, Shell Oil Co., Texaco Inc., Ohio State University, Purdue University, University of Toronto, Gensym Corp., and Applied Training Resources. Members fund about half of the Aegis budget; the National Institute of Standards & Technology funds the remainder.
The Aegis system will consist of software applications that work together to perform several functions: determine the plant's state, identify appropriate goals, develop plans to achieve the goals, execute the plans, and monitor the execution process.
The Phase 2 prototype system includes a new operator interface that uses advanced data presentation and navigation techniques to help the operator quickly assess plant status, restructure the data to support diagnosis, and rapidly access supporting documentation. Phase 3 will include tools to aid in recovering from upsets. Phase 4 will emphasize expert knowledge and execution of tasks.
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