WebCAST seminar entitled "When does controllability equal profitability?"

by
Professor Thomas F. Edgar
George T.  and Gladys Abell Chair in Engineering
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas
1 University Station C0400
Austin,  TX 78712, USA

Date: March 17, 2008, 2 am-4 pm (EST)
 
Dial-in from the comfort of your office to hear the presentation

Deadline to Register: March 15, 2008 (details at 
http://www.castdiv.org/WebCAST.htm)


Abstract

    The justification of process control in the context of business 
decision-making may include the following
economic or operating considerations:  increased product throughput, 
increased yield of higher valued products,
decreased energy consumption, decreased pollution, decreased 
off-specification product, improved safety, extended
life of equipment, improved operability, and decreased production 
labor.  However, identifying a direct relationship
between each type of economic benefit (profitability) and how 
controllers are designed or operated (controllability)
is an elusive target.  Perspectives of how process control has 
influenced business decision-making have changed
radically over the brief history of process control (1950 to the 
present).  Thus it is valuable to have an historical
view of the changing role of process control in operations and 
profit/loss measures.  Today the influence of
process control on business decision-making is at its highest level 
ever, but there are still many challenges that
must be met for process control to maximize its economic impact on an 
enterprise-wide scale.  The opportunity
to connect controllability to profitability appears greater for batch 
processing than for continuous processing.

Biosketch
Dr. Thomas F. Edgar

Thomas F. Edgar is Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University 
of Texas at Austin and holds the George T.
and Gladys Abell Chair in Engineering.  Dr. Edgar received his B.S. in 
chemical engineering from the University of
Kansas and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.  For the past 35 years, he 
has concentrated his academic work in
process modeling, control, and optimization, with over 200 articles and 
book chapters.  Edgar has co-authored
leading textbooks:  Optimization of Chemical Processes (McGraw-Hill, 
2001) and Process Dynamics and Control
(Wiley, 2004).  He has received major awards from AIChE (Colburn, 
Computing in Chemical Engineering, Lewis)
and ASEE (Chemical Engineering Division, Westinghouse, and 
Meriam-Wiley).  Recently he has carried out
modeling and control research projects jointly with a variety of 
companies in the process industries under the
auspices of the Texas-Wisconsin-California Control Consortium 
(www.che.utexas.edu/twmcc).


-- 
Mayuresh V. Kothare (CAST WebCAST chair)
R. L. McCann Associate Professor
Chemical Process Modeling and Control Research Center
Department of Chemical Engineering
Lehigh University, 111 Research Drive
Bethlehem, PA 18015, U.S.A.
Office: D322 Iacocca Hall
Tel: (610) 758 6654, Fax: (610) 758 5057
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.lehigh.edu/~mvk2