EXPERT SYSTEMS COME TO BATCH PROCESS AUTOMATION

Batch process control systems tend to be highly sequential and structured. There is a premium on predictability and repeatability since these lead to a desired uniformity between batches of a product. Conversely, expert systems tend to be unstructured and somewhat unpredictable because of the variety of ways in which a new piece of information, or the need to answer a question, can lead to the use of rules or to other actions. At first these fundamental structural differences might be seen as an impediment to the wide-spread use of expert system technology in a batch automation environment. However, the expert system approach to problem solving is shown here to complement traditional batch-automation techniques in several applications. Additionally, the integration of procedural and expert system capabilities into one software application environment can help make the advantages of each equally accessible to the control engineer.