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