A DISTRIBUTED COORDINATION APPROACH TO RECONFIGURABLE PROCESS CONTROL

By Nirav N. Chokshi, Duncan C. McFarlane, 

Springer Series in Advanced Manufacturing, 2008.



The need to adapt to the demands of global supply chains in real-time is of 

significant importance to the future success of continuous process 

industries. Amongst such business drivers, it will become critical that 

process plants are designed to be easily reconfigured as and when 

necessary. Recent developments in process control have attempted to address 

this requirement, yet there has not been a systematic effort made on the 

analysis of the fundamental shortcomings in the modularity of process 

control systems.



A Distributed Coordination Approach to Reconfigurable Process Control 

presents research that addresses this critical question, via developing a 

new distributed framework that will enable the building of a process 

control system that is capable of reconfigurability. This framework views 

the process as a set of readily-integrated, modular process elements, which 

operate relatively independently and are each supported by a degree of 

stand-alone decision-making capability. The rationale and benefits of 

moving towards the new approach is demonstrated by means of a worked 

example of a real process plant.



A Distributed Coordination Approach to Reconfigurable Process Control will 

be a useful reference to both academic and industrial practitioners working 

in the field of design and integration of process control systems. The new 

architectural dimension presented in this research will also help end-users 

to gain an understanding of the economic aspects of material flows across 

their plants, and the ways in which their processes can be integrated 

across the enterprise.



Written for:



Researchers in process control and automation 

Researchers in agent-based manufacturing control

Pofessionals in industrial process control

Professional system designers and integrators



Keywords:



Distributed Automation 

Holonic Manufacturing 

Process Control 

Reconfigurable Control 

Supply Chain Management