The editorial team at SA Instrumentation and control is always delighted when we receive feedback in the form of letters to the editor. So, when control loop expert and resident SAI&C contributing editor Michael Brown received this feedback from an automation engineer in Australia, we thought it was worth publishing together with the response.
Dear Michael,
I was re-reading this Case Study 127 on ‘Severe control problems in the mining industry’ and was overcome by chagrin – otherwise known as a bad case of ‘head-in-hands’ syndrome.
I am the senior automation engineer for a Mining OEM here in Australia, and I have to acknowledge the truth of almost every point in your article. Except, perhaps, for the last one around understanding and correctly configuring the PLC controllers, I like to think I have that one in hand.
I'd love to copy this Case Study to our Tech Services team - but I think you understand what kind of reception that would get!
Thanks anyhow for a good laugh.
Cheers,
Philip Wilkie.
Hi Philip,
I enjoyed receiving your email. I am pleased you found the article relevant.
Just want to mention that I find that controllers are set up incorrectly in at least 85% of all the many plants I go into that use PLC systems for regulatory control, so that scientific tuning is very often impossible. In two extreme cases, the system integrators did not like the standard PID block in the PLC software and wrote their own algorithms, which didn’t work at all. One of these plants ran for 10 years with all its controllers in manual! This was one of the biggest platinum concentrators in South Africa.
I can give you lots of examples of bad cases of ‘head-in-hands’ syndrome. I actually now find it hard holding up my head unsupported.
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