Top performing facility in control.

Braskem’s Neal Plant has been named by Control Station as the recipient of its inaugural Top Performing Facility Award. The recognition honors the Braskem facility’s exceptional performance in achieving world-class PID control loop effectiveness as measured by Overall Controller Effectiveness (OCE).

As process manufacturers increasingly adopt data-driven performance metrics to improve reliability and efficiency, benchmarking control loop effectiveness has become a critical component of operational excellence. Located in Kenova, West Virginia (USA), the Neal Plant distinguished itself from more than 150 production facilities by achieving the highest average benchmark for plant-wide regulatory controller performance during calendar year 2025. Through proactive monitoring and analysis of PID control loops, the site achieved industry-leading OCE scores that reflect superior controller utilization, minimized variability, and sustained operational excellence.

“Braskem’s Neal Plant exemplifies what is possible when organizations prioritize their control infrastructure as a strategic asset,” said Dennis Nash, President of Control Station. “Their commitment to continuously monitoring and improving control loop effectiveness has delivered measurable gains in stability, throughput, and efficiency. This data-driven approach to optimization is precisely what the Top Performing Facility Award was created to celebrate.”

The award was based on a year-long, data-driven evaluation of OCE scores collected monthly from a diverse set of global manufacturing sites using Control Station’s PlantESP Loop Performance Monitoring solution. As an analogue to Overall Equipment Effectiveness, OCE provides a holistic measure of controller health by assessing factors that characterize an individual PID loop’s availability, performance, and quality. Because OCE is computed using normalized values, performance can be compared across different loop types and aggregated seamlessly from loop to unit, plant, and even enterprise levels. This approach is helping establish OCE as a standard benchmark for control performance across the process industries.

Braskem’s achievement reflects a sustained focus on best practices in loop tuning, performance monitoring, and proactive maintenance. By leveraging advanced analytics and standardized workflows, the Neal Plant has improved process stability and reduced operator intervention, unlocking incremental production capacity and delivering measurable improvements in cost efficiency and operational reliability.

“Achieving world-class regulatory control performance requires both the right technology and a culture of continuous improvement,” commented Bob Rice, PhD, Control Station’s Vice President of Engineering. “Braskem’s Neal Plant has demonstrated leadership in both areas, delivering measurable gains in operational performance and overall efficiency.”

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@Control_Station @braskem  #Pauto #USA

Monitoring and control of multiple applications on single display!

Red Lion Controls has announced the integration of FlexBus™ technology to its PAX®2C proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller portfolio. By inserting field installable FlexCard™ modules, users can now populate PAX2C PID controllers in more than 150 configurations to monitor and control multiple application processes on a single display.

Red Lion’s advanced PAX2C modular platform provides an easy upgrade path that enables integrators and panel builders to reduce inventory requirements while increasing application support. The solution is ideal for temperature, flow and pressure control in industries such as packaging, plastic welding, extrusion and food and beverage.

“Our PAX2C controllers are designed for end users who want to address a wide range of PID control requirements,” said Jeff Thornton, director of product management at Red Lion Controls. “By using option cards with the PAX2C, organizations no longer have to maintain an inventory of application-specific controllers. This reduces inventory costs while also allowing organizations to more quickly meet any PID application requirements.”

The new FlexCard modules include:

• Process Input/Remote Setpoint Cards: support input of 0/4 to 20 mA to enable cascade control loops where tighter control is required
• Heater Current Monitor Cards: provide heater current input and can signal when the heater or heater control devices have failed before damage occurs

Red Lion’s Crimson® programmed PAX2C PID controllers are dual-line displays that change color based on process status, alerting when a value is out of a specified range. With universal process inputs and AC/DC power input, PAX2C controllers accept DC current, DC voltages, process signals, thermocouples and RTD inputs to provide an all-in-one platform that eases integration. Additional features include a large LCD display with easy-to-read bar graphs, programmable annunciators, up to 16 alarms and a built-in USB programming port.

• Red Lion products are marketed in Ireland by Instrument Technology.

HMI simplifies geeky PID control!

"We try to simplify really geeky topics such as PID loop control. So it is with much satisfaction that we report that our engineers have created new software to sit on the REVO human machine interface (HMI) touch panel colour display that will interface with the REVO-TC thyristor package and simplify things further still." So says Jez Watson MD at CD Automation

CD Automation’s REVO-TC is a single loop temperature control and power solution that dramatically reduces wiring costs and cabinet size. The REVO TC combines a PID temperature controller, solid state relay (thyristor), quick blow fuse protection and current monitoring, all in a compact single loop package.

With the new REVO HMI for REVO TC, up to 30 zones can be monitored from a 4.3, 7, or 10 inch colour display to show trends and manage recipes. There is also a warm-up planner and multiple languages including English, German, Italian and French.

Each product can manage up to 30 loops and the operator page can display four or eight loops depending on the HMI and setup of the project. Tapping the zone description area gives access to an advanced parameter and setup page for each zone.

The four or eight loop page display features a zone description that can be edited by the user, on-off pushbutton, set-point display and setting, temperature measured display, power output value, generic alarm status, deviation graph and trend display push button for each zone.

An advanced operating page provides process and alarm information for each loop. Moving from zone to zone can easily be achieved by using the forward and back arrow keys.

Control parameters comprise proportional band, integral time, derivative time, cooling gain, overlap for proportional band, pre-tune activation and self-tune activation.

Each loop can have a dedicated trend page that provides a graphical time display of set-point value and temperature control response. A 15 minute log can be shown at any one time on a maximum of 24 operating pages, including four graphical displays.

An Jez concludes, "Off course, you may pride yourself in being a geek, in which case you might not want a REVO HMI, particularly if your geek code is e+++++. However if your geek code is e+ to e--, you may want to contact us and ask us about REVO HMI. "

Turning up the heat!

Newest Addition to PAX2 Series improves flexibility and ease of use for process & temperature control markets

Red Lion Controls has expanded its portfolio of industrial automation solutions with the new PAX2C PID controller, which is designed specifically for the process and temperature control markets. Applications include food & beverage, plastics, packaging, energy, gas, heat treating and glass processing.

The PAX2C is the latest addition to Red Lion’s PAX2 series, adding a number of flexible, easy-to-use features to help customers improve productivity and drive efficiency on the production line.

The PAX2C’s features include:
• Field installable plug-in option cards – simplifies configuration by enabling customers to seamlessly use different cards to build their own controllers. This type of flexibility, which is unique in the controller market, eliminates the need to order additional products to meet changing application requirements.
• Dual-line tri-color display – provides at-a-glance visual representation of up to 16 changing alarm conditions with 7 programmable color zones; customizable to allow users full access to bar graphs, annunciators, color zones and display mnemonics.
• Universal input – accepts current, voltage, resistance, temperature and process signals all in the same unit.
• Universal power supply – accepts AC or DC power, and is ready to plug in “out of the box” for fast, easy installation regardless of power polarity.
• Easy programming, firmware and software upgrades – using a standard built-in USB connector and Red Lion’s Crimson software to support both current needs and future requirements.

“The real game-changer with our PAX2C is the flexible plug-in option cards – customers can build their own controllers by simply changing cards,” said Jeff Thornton, director of product management at Red Lion Controls. “This reduces inventory and lowers costs because they only need to stock a single controller and a handful of option cards.”

The PAX2C is available now through authorized Red Lion resellers and distributors. In Ireland they are represented by Instrument Technology.

PID control design

A training course on "Introduction to PID Control Design" on 23rd - 24th August 2011 is scheduled for Scotland's second city, Glasgow.

This 2-days course, organised by Industrial Systems & Control (ISC),  is aimed at engineers, new graduates and those interested in understanding a PID control design. The course starts with basic knowledge of control design in terms of understanding a linear system through computer-aids analysis to sophisticated approach in terms of designing of an effective PID controller for the system.

This course provides an insight to PID controller such as its limitation and also presents various methods that can overcome such implementation issues. An alternative frequency control design, namely Lead-lag compensator is illustrated and its performance is compared against PID controller. Generally, this course provides an overview of PID control techniques and gives general guidelines for analysis and tuning of a PID controller.