Product Brief

OPTIM/RT

Products
    DataLogic
    RuleDesigner
    Forecaster
    Optim/RT
    VirtualAnalyzer
    SchedulingExpert

Industries-of-the-Future

Papers:

Process Management

Distributed/Approximate
     Reasoning

Energy Systems

Optim/RT is an integrated computer software solution for supervisory control and optimization of continuous manufacturing and resource processing plants. Optim/RT reduces operating costs, and increases process efficiency and product quality by advising operators on the best approach to control and optimize the process.

Objective (Why use Optim/RT)

Today’s plant control and information systems (DCS, SCADA, HMI’s, etc.) are very effective in collecting, summarizing and displaying process data, trends and information including SPC. The problem is, however, that we have too much information and data. Optim/RT provides the necessary capabilities to interpret process data and correct any suboptimal and/or abnormal operating conditions.

Optim/RT acts as an expert process supervisor who monitors and diagnoses process conditions and offers alternative corrective optimization strategies in real-time to the operators. It’s "knowledge and experience" are based on the analysis of patterns in production data using innovative algorithms for analyzing impact of different operation conditions.

Functional Description

Optim/RT integrates process supervisory functions including monitoring and diagnosis of abnormal and/or suboptimal process condition, supervisory control, and process optimization into a single, integrated software. Optim/RT employs Microsoft Foundation Classes technologies to provide robust, secure, and compatible integration with the existing systems application software.

Optim/RT access data from DCS, SCADA, or production reporting databases and analyzes events to provide real-time recommendations for optimizing process performance. The optimization is also based on patterns and constraints derived from historical data.

System Architecture

Optim/RT is a software solution for optimizing processes equipped with DCS, PLC or Modbus Hardware. The system consists of six modules:

• OPC Data Access and Monitoring

• Process Configuration and Definition

• Process outcome prediction

• Individual process area optimization

• Plant-wide optimization

Optim/RT is compatible with most DCS, SCADA and HMI systems including Bailey, ABB, Fisher-Rosemount, Foxboro, Allen-Bradley, Siemens, and other DCS systems.

Economics

Use of historical production data for building optimization strategies means low development cost since no predictive models have to be developed. Use of OPC and production databases compliant communication protocols means low installation costs and high data transfer reliability. New applications can be efficiently developed using REDUCT’s consulting services without any need to train or hire new personnel.

Example of Applications

Optimization of continuous manufacturing and resource upgrading processes in real-time:

• reduction of chemical addrates and off-specs product in pulp plants

• increasing efficiency of froth floatation cells in mineral processing plants

• improvement of rolled products in steel mills

How It Compares To Other Methods

Comprehensive approach to modeling process knowledge

• Control and optimization knowledge are based equally on historical process data and the knowledge of expert engineers and operators.

• Optim/RT recognizes that the best control and optimization is not based on detailed modeling of individual variables’, but on understanding how groups of variables behave in response to different process conditions (different control states).

• Optim/RT recognizes that the same variable can affect the process outcome differently depending on its value, i.e. the effect of the variable may be totally non-linear.

• Optim/RT represents process knowledge at different levels of abstraction.  This gives you a view of the primary vs secondary control states that you have to consider.

Effective decision making and optimization strategies

• Optim/RT follows a well defined strategy for optimization.  First it assesses if the process conditions will result in an acceptable product or process outcome.  If not, it recommends changes that will result in the desired outcome.  It then proceeds to find the best optimization setpoints and predicts product/process outcomes for the new process state. 

•  When Optim/RT looks for changes to control strategies, it does not simply match target rules and their condition.  It reasons like an expert engineer or operator by assessing what is similar, dissimilar, and inconsistent in the current and desired target operating conditions (control states).

Follows the product through different stages of the process (process areas)

• Optim/RT monitors the product as it moves through different process areas.  In each area, it shows you what happened in previous areas and how that affects your choices in the current and next process areas.

Provides insight into process problems and recommendations

• The control/optimization recommendations are  presented as simple descriptions of control/optimization states. This makes the recommendations transparent/intuitive, unlike black box systems which just output an answer.  Optim’s recommendations are also easy to understand unlike complicated statistical/numeric formulas.

• Optim/RT tells you how process variables should be corrected, not only for optimized variables but also for other variables that are outside their optimized ranges.

Flexibility in optimization 

• Optim/RT always offers more than one way to fix the problem.   It suggests the least disturbing correction to the system first, then shows other possibilities.  It recognizes there may be a preference for different control approaches to what may seem identical situations.

• With Optim/RT you can optimize either for target variables, or for all critical process variables.

• You can choose your own setpoints and see the effect by using what-if analysis.

Unobtrusive

• Optim/RT patiently resides in the background and alerts you when there is a problem with the process.

Can be used in a wide variety of problems

• The technologies that underly Optim/RT have been used in business and industry heavy industry, manufacturing, finance, marketing, medicine, scientific research, space, etc.

• Optim/RT matches most, if not all, of the capabilities of expert systems, neural networks, fuzzy logic, statistical models and delivers superior results.

REDUCT & Lobbe Technologies Inc.
P.O. Box 800,  186 - 8120 No.2 Road., Richmond, BC,  Canada  V7C 5J8
ph: (604) 275-3711   fax: (604) 275-3715  email: dispatch@reduct.com