Optimized control-system architecture comes with many production benefits. One of the tools for doing this is to perform a series of step tests. In many cases, step tests are not possible, or are time-consuming or plan-intrusive. PITOPS is a specialized engineering software platform for stepless multivariable closed-loop system identification, detection and isolation of unmeasured process disturbances, multi-objective proportional integral derivative (PID) controller tuning, PLC/DCS-based Advanced Process Control (APC) design and optimization, and Model Predictive Controller (MPC) model maintenance. Rather than relying on older tuning rules or guesswork, PITOPS allows all of the above capabilities without the need for plant step-test data. PITOPS supports a wide range of capabilities that traditional APC-optimization software tools do not. It is not sensitive to initial unstable conditions, outliers, noise or drifts. — Pi Control Solutions LLC, Houston, Tex.
