Future trends in process automation

The importance of automation in the process industries has increased dramatically in recent years. In the highly industrialized countries, process automation serves to enhance product quality, master the whole range of products, improve process safety and plant availability, efficiently utilize resources and lower emissions. In the rapidly developing countries, mass production is the main motivation for applying process automation. The greatest demand for process automation is in the chemical industry, power generating industry, and petrochemical industry; the fastest growing demand for hardware, standard software and services of process automation is in the pharmaceutical industry. The importance of automation technology continues to increase in the process industries. The traditional barriers between information, communication and automation technology are, in the operational context, gradually disappearing. The latest technologies, including wireless networks, fieldbus systems and asset management systems, boost the efficiency of process systems. New application fields like biotechnology and microtechnology pose challenges for future theoretical work in the modeling, analysis and design of control systems. In this paper the industry trends that are shaping current automation requirements, as well as the future trends in process automation, are presented and discussed. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.