Abstract
The contribution aims at stimulating a dialogue between academia and industry: from an application point of view, the authors observe in the field of process control an ongoing drift between theory and practice. As engineers, the authors are concerned that this drift weakens the position of process control as a whole. Hence, a thorough analysis and a following discussion are at need. In order to contribute to the aforementioned dialogue, first the state of the art of process control in the Western European chemical industry is reported by displaying the results of a Western-European-wide survey. Thereafter, a discussion of the actual context of industrial applications of process control is led. Finally, the contribution is concluded in view of opening the field for the dialogue in need by some remarks fostering the future of process control as a whole.
About the authors
Dr.-Ing. MSEE Uwe Piechottka, 54, is head of the group Automation and Process Analytical Technology in the department Process Technology and Engineering of Evonik Industries AG. His main interests are instrumentation, process analytics, control, data analysis and informations technology. He studied electrical engineering and process control in Duisburg and Seattle.
Evonik Industries AG, Postcode 1024-319, Rodenbacher Chaussee 4, 63457 Hanau-Wolfgang, Germany
Dr. Veit Hagenmeyer, 42, is responsible for the power plants at BASF SE in Ludwigshafen (Germany) since 3 years. He studied ,Engineering Cybernetics` in Stuttgart (Germany) and Berkeley (CA, USA). He wrote his dissertation in Paris (France) in the area of systems and control. After postdocs in Paris and Stuttgart he started as engineer at BASF in the competence center for automation technology, there in the ,Advanced Process Control` group. He led this group thereafter for 2 years. In the following, he worked in the Verbund simulation team. Then he became the personal assistant to the President for the European sites.
BASF SE, ESI/EK – S306, 67056 Ludwigshafen, Germany. Phone: +49 621 60- 56052, Mobile: +49 172 7437945, Fax: +49 621 60-6656052
©2014 Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
