Throughout the past decades, control system philosophies have centered around very basic hardwired relay logic. Many changes have occurred, starting with the introduction of the programmable controller to the latest, state of the art, distributed control systems. Realizing the importance of lessons learned from past and present control systems, new requirement goals were established as the path of the new systems.
A flexible, modular, compatible, and expandable architecture was the desired foundation of our Next Generation Control System. Current technology allows for a distributed control inputs/outputs and greater processing speed is realized using this approach. A graphical user interface with real time trending, data logging, network communications, real time statistical process control, and knowledge based systems are major items in the Next Generation Control System.