THE ROLE OF THE DISTRIBUTED CONTROL-SYSTEM IN MEETING THE OBJECTIVE OF CONTINUOUS QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

The process control industry has seen some dramatic changes in the pas t ten years. Safety and environmental concerns have required a much br oader look at how a process is controlled, and the influence of intern ational competition has also dramatically contributed to this change. This environment of rapid change will continue, if not accelerate, in the decade of the '90s. In order to maintain a competitive edge, manag ers of these process industry operations must maintain a philosophy of ''continuous quality improvement''. These people must critically look at their process each day to see what can be done to improve the qual ity (and, therefore, the competitiveness) of their product. In order t o accomplish this goal, however, they must have the tools available to implement the changes ''on line''. One of the most powerful tools tha t could potentially aid in this process is the technology available in a plant-wide distributed control system. In order to meet this goal, vendors of these systems must move away from some of the glitter that dominates the current offerings and concentrate on the fundamental arc hitectures and tools that offer these quality improvement features to the end user. This paper will look at this topic and discuss the exper ience of users who have adopted this philosophy.