My first experience with wet labs was about 35 years ago when I set up an acetic acid and water neutralizer and distillation column with conductivity, flow, level, pH, and temperature loops as part of a 6 week course to teach process control to new employees. I learned first hand how time consuming and expensive …
Monthly Archive: December 2008
Dec
22
The Secret Life of pH Electrodes
This is 100th anniversary of the glass pH electrode yet we still do not know much about what affects their life. Not much has been published about application problems and practices. There have been a few academic studies on the effect of process conditions on the glass electrode but these are over 20 years old. …
Dec
07
Past, Present, and Future of Automation – Part 6 (Operator Interface)
Line “D” of a pet food plant never operates as well as the other lines. Line “A” has the best performance. The operators for line “D” say that line “D” is different and it can’t do better. When a line “D” operator gets sick, a line “A” operator fills in on Line “D”. Line “D” …
Dec
01
Past, Present, and Future of Automation – Part 5 (Benchmarking and Opportunity Assessment)
One of my favorite cartoons is Einstein at a blackboard with his equations for the “General Theory of Relativity” all leading up to one concluding equation “Time = Money.” In this same vein, the great movie line comes to mind: “show me the money” . More than ever, if you want to do neat things …
