With the decreasing availability of experienced manufacturing technical staff, more and more companies are expressing significant interest in offsite remote control services to increase efficiency and profitability at the enterprise level. The combination of modern information processing and telecommunication methods offer proven and effective applications for monitoring the state of processes, as well as maintaining and servicing remote operations sites such as manufacturing plants from a central location. 

Downside to in-house process control regulation
Regulating a process during production changes is vital to plant profitability but maintenance of Advanced Controls often cannot be performed using in-house resources or with standard data logging technology. Other challenges include:

• Technical staff understand their processes very well but are not process control specialists
• Technical staff might not understand the exact limitations of different control technologies (feedback, feedforward, adaptive, MPC) and not have the time to troubleshoot problems that arise
• Troubleshooting processes with rapid dynamics (turbine, motors, combustion processes, paper machines) requires specialized high-frequency data logging tools and the plant historian might be too slow (sampling frequency is too low) to be aware of what is really happening. Problems of this nature cannot be planned and when they occur, staff and consultants alike are usually not on site to effectively deal with the situation

Remote Control Engineering outsourcing advantages

• Optimize processes by remotely monitoring energy costs, product variability, and process controls
• Remote control engineering consultants have first-hand knowledge and experience of process issues and have the tools and the expertise to solve any problems that may arise

• Reduces costs, improves process flexibility and performance while improving product quality
• Maximize plant assets with automatic controls during startup and production change

How a remote engineering project works: Step by step

1. Plants defines their process and economic objectives
2. Enero Solutions engineers conduct an onsite visit to review the chosen process and establish with plant operations the Key Process Indicators (KPI) –the variables that have a direct impact on plant profitability
3. Enero Solutions HawkView data loggers are installed in processes where dynamics are too rapid for the plant historian
4. Enero Solutions collects data remotely, analyzes current control logic and the as-found process variability
5. Potential variability improvements and cost reduction initiatives are presented to the plant. Potential Return On Investment (ROI) are calculated to prioritize the different advanced process control (APC) opportunities
6. Advanced Process Control or process changes are implemented and savings are recorded
7. Plant keeps track of savings and profitability of remote control engineering services through a dedicated Monthly Report