Mastery Practice at Your Plant is a one-day extension to any of our Practical Process Control workshops. Our instructor will work alongside course participants on your plant floor, demonstrating the application of methods covered during the workshop and reinforcing their value on the front lines of production.

One Day Curriculum
Each Mastery course is different. The progression of the day depends on your plant, its technology, your current production challenges, and other intangibles. But in every case, we focus on reinforcing core workshop concepts and on helping you achieve your goals and needs.

An example Mastery Practice follow-on to Fundamentals of Instrumentation and Process Control might include:
  · Assessing valve and/or pump behavior. Perhaps several of the group stand at a valve and confirm by phone/radio its response behavior as the others issue commands from the control panel. As the data response evolves on the display, evidence of stiction or dead band as had been discussed in the Fundamentals of Instrumentation workshop are considered. Workshop techniques are brought into play to validate observations. Corrective action priorities are discussed and scenarios for implementation are considered.
  · Evaluating sensor performance. The group might work as a team to check the calibration and zero/span as discussed in the just-completed workshop. Sensor technical specifications are discussed in relation to overall control loop performance. The differences between collecting data for analysis at the device location versus the control panel are explored and best practices are reinforced following methods from the previous workshop.
  · Sketching control loop diagrams, listing the control objectives, and considering the capabilities of the sensor and final control element on the performance of a PID control loop. Loop interactions, disturbances, failure modes and instrumentation capabilities as presented in the earlier workshop are discussed. The relationship between loop performance and loop tuning might be explored, if permissible and guided by your authorized engineering staff.

An example Mastery Practice follow-on to Techniques for Applied Process Control might include:
  · Identifying and prioritizing plant control systems for analysis and optimization. Several loops are selected by the group and simplified loop diagrams are sketched and discussed.
  · Control objectives as discussed in the preceding workshop are documented for the selected loops. Common disturbances and interactions are identified and quantified as taught in the earlier workshop. The relevant sensors and final control elements are identified and validated. The impact of the instrumentation on performance is assessed.
  · The current performance of the control loops are evaluated using historical data or current plot trends. Methods learned in the Techniques for Applied Process Control workshop are used to characterize and quantify loop performance. 
  · Potential advanced controller architectures, algorithm selection and tuning values are discussed for potential optimization. Design and tuning methods as practiced in the earlier workshop are employed to model plant data, generate offline simulations, and demonstrate expected benefits.
  · If permissible and guided by your authorized engineering staff, tuning values are updated and tested using workshop techniques. Improved performance is assessed and documented. 

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