Hydrocarbon Processing Page 1 of 3

Log off or Change user ( )

Subscribe to HP magazine!

Advanced search
Reader service request
HPInformer: the new blog from Hydrocarbon Processing

October 2009
Full contents

Practical process control system metrics

Here are several useful examples

A. G. Kern, Tesoro Corp., Los Angeles, California

Comments? Write:
editorial@HydrocarbonProcessing.com

Control system metrics can be highly effective in managing a process control system. They help
ensure overall system health and integrity, focus available technical support resources on the
highest-priority areas and serve to put all stakeholders on the same page with regard to control
system performance issues.

The metrics approach can be applied to control systems of any vintage. New control systems
normally don't achieve peak integrity or functionality for several years. Metrics can accelerate the
maturation process and go on to help sustain peak performance over the control system life. For
older control systems, metrics can be used to assess their integrity and manage risk area
improvement.

Control system metrics monitor fundamental control system health, like measuring vital signs of a
person. When they are within healthy limits, the system can be expected to continue to perform
reliably, but when they fall to risky levels, further investigation and treatment are needed to bring risk
back to acceptable levels. Control system metrics serve this role for control system health.

Metrics answer suppositions such as, if our regulatory controls are sound, most control valves will be
in automatic; if our safety systems are intact, few functions will be in bypass; and if our alarm
management has been effective, our alarm rates will be within operable limits.

Extensive engineering efforts go into these areas, but sanity checks such as these are often
overlooked, setting the stage for unwanted incidents or performance headaches to reveal the gaps.
Metrics reveal the gaps proactively by gauging success in fundamental ways, regardless of the
engineering approach (proven or novel) employed. Once in place, metrics guard against long-term
performance degradation, which is another concern affecting many control system aspects.

Control system metrics, a.k.a. key performance indicators (KPIs), have been popular in recent years,
but many initiatives have stalled due to some common mistakes. This article helps to avoid the
mistakes, identifies guiding principles and provides several useful example metrics.

Principles and mistakes. Control system metrics are about the control system, not the people.
Many efforts have derailed due to concerns about metrics reflecting on individual job performance. In
practice, nearly all metrics have shared responsibility between engineering, operations and
maintenance. And nearly all "below-target" results pose business challenges, not individual ones. By
selecting fundamental metrics and tackling risk areas systematically, it stays about the control
system, not the people.

It's all about control system health, not control loop performance. Control loop performance is only
one of several metrics, and not an especially critical one at that, relative to system faults, safety
functions, alarm rates, etc. But the common preoccupation with loop performance, especially when
coupled with the first mistake about people, has killed many attempts to deploy online metrics before
ever getting beyond this first one. Simple and objective techniques to address this metric are included
in the discussion below.

It's about saving time and resources, not consuming them. Avoid deploying metrics that contribute
little to control system improvement while saddling personnel with application support and manual
data collection and reporting duties. Instead, deploy fully automated metrics utilizing existing
DCS/historian capabilities. This is inherently robust and effective. In addition, automated and
historized metrics provide their own benchmarks and trends provide essential insight for addressing
shortfalls.

Go gradually. Avoid attempts to engineer all the metrics before all the lessons have been learned.
Start with one or two metrics to address the biggest concerns. Build on success with additional
metrics while keeping the original ones in place to sustain long-term control system health. Overall,
the strategy is to create a minimal set of metrics, with each one representing some fundamental
aspect of control system integrity or functionality. The key metrics are:

Control valves in automatic: Not to be confused with control loop performance, this metric
measures basic control valve asset utilization—are they under automatic control or are they in
manual and, therefore, failing to earn a real-time return on their investment? Measuring higher levels
of control, i.e., the troublesome control loop performance issue, has steeply diminishing returns, while
this simple metric answers 90% of the question.

This metric is traditionally implemented based on controller mode (in this case, of only controllers
directly attached to valves), but is better implemented based on the actual output value—if it is
changing, the valve is in automatic; if it is not changing, the valve is in manual. This approach is more
generic, captures valves that spend time saturated and side-steps the sticky issue of "normal mode."

http://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/default.asp?Page=14&PUB=22&SID=722870&ISS=25491 19/Oct/09
Hydrocarbon Processing Page 2 of 3

Mass balance closure: This metric amounts to "poor man's data reconciliation," plus it works. It
serves to improve flow metering performance across a facility and contributes to the integrity of
applications that utilize flow data, whether directly (such as advanced control) or indirectly via the
historian (such as LPs, simulations, efficiency monitoring and design or trouble-shooting activities).

The concept is to implement mass balance equations around each vessel, plant and utility system.
Although most facilities will claim to have a firm handle on their mass balances, an online, drill-down,
robust application with good closure remains an industry rarity. This metric provides a positive path to
this capability.

All DCSs since 1980 have built-in pressure and temperature compensation functions for flow. These
can be used to improve from an initial target closure of 3% to an optimum range of less than 1%, an
achievement most facilities could be proud of, especially in a robust online format.

Where flow measurements are missing, they can sometimes be estimated (for example, by a heat
exchanger energy balance or a valve sizing analysis). Or, the missing flow can be calculated to close
the mass balance. In these cases, the quality is set to "fair" or "poor" to bring attention to the missing
measurement, which may be needed for more rigorous offline data reconciliation or loss-accounting
calculations.

Safety functions in bypass: This metric doesn't assure that safety systems are technically correct
or built according to best practice, but it assures that the expected safety functions are available.
Safety functions have bypasses to facilitate testing and repair, but often (though usually incorrectly)
bypasses are also used during nonroutine operations, such as startup, shutdown or upsets. Or they
may be kept in bypass for long periods due to design or field instrument problems. This metric sheds
light on such practices and helps address them.

It's a growing industry practice to completely eliminate the use of bypasses except as intended (for
testing or repair). This is being accomplished with a combination of more sophisticated safety
function logic, startup permissives that (at least) minimize effective bypass time and more stringent
administrative controls on the use of bypass switches. This metric provides necessary information to
manage these issues.

System faults: This metric, like safety bypasses and mass balance closure, tends to be a historical
problem area that responds well to visibility. Control system status displays should be "all green", but
in many control systems, old and new, users live with standing system alarms. Each one represents
a risk, desensitizes users to the possibility of compound faults and undermines the obvious
maintenance mission of keeping the system error free. This metric can serve as the starting point for
hardware and system maintenance personnel on a daily basis.

Alarm-driven operation: These metrics are not alarm management, but they indicate if your alarm
management program is working. After integrity of safety systems and regulatory controls, alarm
management represents the biggest opportunity for operational improvement (if done correctly) and

http://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/default.asp?Page=14&PUB=22&SID=722870&ISS=25491 19/Oct/09
Hydrocarbon Processing Page 3 of 3

the biggest risk to plant availability and preventable incidents (if done incorrectly), because about half
of console operation is alarm-driven (as opposed to procedure-driven). If the alarm system is
unhealthy, operation is compromised.

Alarm management has grown to include several schools of thought, but the number of disabled
alarms and the alarm rate (both hourly average and peak) continue to surface as common
denominators in most discussions. Newer DCSs may (should) do this counting for you, ideally
making the data available as historizable tags (ditto for system faults as mentioned previously). A
related metric worth considering is operator action rate, i.e., the hourly number of changes to mode,
setpoint and outputs.

Smart field: This metric indicates the extent to which control system intelligence has been extended
beyond the rack room to the field in the form of smart valves and transmitters. Relying on "dumb"
field devices or "dumb" communication interfaces is similar to relying on old analog or pneumatic
control systems—it's so last millennium. Lack of field smarts means control system intelligence ends
at the rack room and does not extend to the field, with corresponding limitations on productivity,
safety, availability and predictive maintenance capabilities.

The metric is calculated as the percentage of smart transmitters and valves with smart interfaces—
score 0% for a "dumb" device, 50% for a smart device and 100% for a smart device on a smart
interface. Separate metrics for transmitters and valves would be appropriate, as would a metric for
smart motor controls. This metric may not apply to new construction that is built 100% smart, but for
existing plants, this metric helps measure and promote progress toward a fully intelligent control
system.

Control loop performance: The past two decades' preoccupation with multivariable predictive
control (MPC) has left most people, from engineers to managers, believing that control system health
is embodied first in MPC "service factors" and second in anecdotal (and often disingenuous) trends of
vagabond variables gone straight. The theme of this article makes clear that there are many more
fundamental and relevant concerns a manager or engineer should have.

That said, performance of higher-level controls is a real concern. For those who demand an
additional gauge, (beyond "values in automatic"), a viable next-step metric is the percentage of
controllers in cascade mode. This captures regulatory control utilization (cascade, ratio, etc.),
advanced regulatory controls (or ARC, including overrides and "custom" or "complex" loops) and, of
course, MPC. The success of MPC itself, a topic of special concern for many, is well reflected in "MV
utilization."1 At this point, few MPC practitioners still attach much credibility to "service factor. HP

LITERATURE CITED

1 Kern, A. G., "Online monitoring of multivariable control utilization and benefits," Hydrocarbon Processing, October 2005.

The author

Allan Kern has 30 years of international process control experience and is

currently working as a lead control systems engineer at Tesoro Corporation's
refinery in Los Angeles, California, USA. Mr. Kern is a licensed professional
engineer, an ISA Senior Member and a 1981 graduate of the University of
Wyoming.

Return to top

Copyright © 2009 Hydrocarbon Processing

Copyright © 2009 Gulf Publishing Company

http://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/default.asp?Page=14&PUB=22&SID=722870&ISS=25491 19/Oct/09