Control Notes

OptiControls is proud to announce the release of its flagship book, Process Control for Practitioners – How to Tune PID controllers and Optimize Control Loops. Written by Dr. Jacques F. Smuts, the author of this blog and principal consultant of OptiControls, this new book is the ultimate practical guide to control loop optimization.

Control loop optimization is not rocket science, but it is not trivial either. To be effective in optimizing the performance industrial process control systems, an engineer or technician has to know the process and its limitations, understand process dynamics, controllers and tuning, use the right techniques and tools, and follow the optimization process systematically. He also has to know how to troubleshoot control problems to find and fix their causes.

This book conveys the knowledge and techniques required to effectively troubleshoot and improve the performance of automatic control systems. It clearly and concisely covers all the topics and know-how required for being an outstanding controls practitioner. Explanations go into enough depth to make the material understandable, but discussions are kept short so the book can serve as a reference guide. The book shows you how to tune PID controllers more effectively in less time, and ensure long-term loop stability. It is your complete reference for improving control-loop performance, solving process control problems, and designing control strategies. You will refer to this guide again and again.

If you like the content of this blog, you will love the book Process Control for Practitioners!

The book’s 315 pages and 176 figures will help you discover how easy it is to:

• Understand PID controllers, their control actions, settings, and options.
• Identify process dynamics and their effects on loop performance and controller tuning.
• Get the best possible performance from a control loop.
• Tune controllers differently to achieve specific control objectives.
• Identify the root cause (or causes) of poor control performance.
• Use techniques such as linearization and gain scheduling to ensure consistent loop response and long-term stability.
• Design and optimize control strategies such as cascade, feedforward, and ratio control to improve control performance and reduce variability.
• Monitor loop performance and pinpoint control problems.

This concise manual on control-loop optimization will show you the fastest, surest, and most practical ways to tune controllers and solve control problems.

Process Control for Practitioners is available at Amazon.com.

Stay tuned!
Jacques Smuts

Process Control for Practitioners – Front Cover

Process Control for Practitioners – Back Cover