arc bestpractices

8/11/2019 ARC BestPractices

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By Tom Fiske

ARCBEST PRACTICES

JANUARY 2008

Best Practices for Advanced Process Control

Executive Overview .................................................................... 3

The Issue: Achieving Greater Value from Assets ............................. 5

APC Best Practice Study Methodology ........................................... 10

Respondents .......................................................................11

People ...............................................................................11

Processes and Applications ...................................................15

Technology .........................................................................24

Information ........................................................................27

Best Practice Recommendations .................................................. 30

THOUGHT LEADERS FOR MANUFACTURING &SUPPLY CHAIN


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ARC Best Practices January 2008

2 Copyright ARC Advisory Group ARCweb.com

People

Processes and

Applications Technology Information

Leader Utilize in-houseexpertise toimplement andmaintain APCapplications

APC initiativesinclude certification,skill enhancement,and retention ofAPC experts

Collaborate and useshared best

practices withcontinuousimprovements andlessons learned

High number of APCapplications

High saturation ofAPC application onlarge process units

Expanding APCcoverage to includesmaller processunits

Applying advancedcontrol to batch

operations andtransitions

Uses RTO whereappropriate

Extensive use ofcontrol monitoringapplications forboth regulatorycontrol and APC

Extensiveautomation andplant applicationintegration in areassuch as LIMS,changemanagement,

alarm history, andhistorian

High APCutilization

Well thought outand highlyfunctional alarmmanagementprogram

Competitor Uses combination ofin-house and third-party expertise forimplementing APC

In-house expertisemaintains APCapplications

Extensive use ofAPC on largeprocess units

Expanding use ofAPC in other areas

Some advancecontrol applicationsin batch operations

Uses some controlmonitoringapplications forboth regulatorycontrol and APCwith shorttermplans to expanduse

Limited degree ofautomation andplant applicationintegration withplans to increaseintegration efforts

Achieves moderateAPC utilization

Some alarmmanagementfunctionalitybeyond basic DCSalarms

Follower Scattered expertise

Rely on outsourcingfor APCimplementation

Joint in-house andthird-party

expertise used formaintenance of APC

Sporadicdeployment of APC

Limited to largeprocess units

Little use ofadvanced

applications forbatch operations

Little use of controlperformancemonitoringapplications

Little automationand plantapplication

integration

Has troubleachieving high APCutilization

Alarmmanagement not apriority

Best Practices Maturity Matrix


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Copyright ARC Advisory Group ARCweb.com 3

With the high penetration of APC

on large units, leading companies

are looking for opportunities to

apply APC in other areas including

small-to-midsized process units.

Executive Overview

APC is a proven technology that reduces process variability and inefficien-

cy, improves product consistency, increases throughput by allowing

operations to push constraints to the limits and achieve higher return on

assets. Achieving and sustaining these benefits has not always been easy.

It requires a sound strategy and adherence to best prac-

tices.

APC Applications

This report focuses on what leaders, competitors, and fol-

lowers are doing with respect to the adoption and use of

control technologies. Leading process companies have already applied

APC to a high percentage of their large process units under steady-state

condition. They are now evaluating opportunities to apply APC on smaller

units throughout their entire organization in a similar fashion as they

would for larger projects: on an economic or Return on Investment (ROI)

basis.

Outside the polymer industry, MPC is not used extensively for transition

management. Today, the common methods of managing transitions in-

clude providing decision support and operator guidance, sequence control,

and ensuring operators are well trained. For batch operations, MPC is stillin its infancy. However, leaders are applying other technologies to help

control and improve their batch operations. Leaders tend to use soft sen-

sors and profile control over other techniques.

Companies are rapidly deploying tools to monitor the performance of con-

trol assets including PID loops and advanced process controllers. Most

leaders are using some form of regulatory control monitoring application

and they have a high adoption rate of APC performance monitoring solu-

tions. In terms of metrics, leaders are achieving over 95 percent APC

utilization factor. This compares favorably to competitors and followerswho achieve 88 and 60 percent respectively.

Automation Integration with Plant Applications

Over the past several years, leading companies have made considerable

progress in integrating their process data and LIMS with production opera-


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tions. With a few notable exceptions such as plant asset management, lead-

ers have integrated a significant portion of their automation and plant

applications. Leaders also have a well-established and comprehensive

alarm management program. Competitors and followers still lag behind in

these areas.

Organizational Aspects for Success

The effective use of APC is highly dependent upon the knowledge and

skills of a companys experts and upon its corporate strategies for imple-

menting, using, and maintaining its applications. All users supplement

their in-house resources with third-party or supplier resources. A major

difference between the leaders and the rest of the companies is how much

of a project is implemented with in-house resources and how much is out-

sourced.

The leading companies view APC as providing a competitive advantage.

As such, they use methods to ensure they obtained the greatest value from

their APC applications at the lowest possible cost. This translates into tak-

ing the lead role on the majority of APC implementation. Leaders have

established a standardized methodology to roll out additional APC applica-

tions. The methodology often includes continuous improvement strategies

and lessons learned that helps to reduce the cost of each successive imple-

mentation.

The majority of users maintain their own APC applications. Leaders have

more in-house expertise than other companies and consequently take on

greater responsibility in maintaining their APC applications.

Most companies have not established a particular criterion for utilizing

APC experts. Only about 20 percent of the companies use a certification

process. About 10 percent of the companies closely monitor the number of

applications each APC expert is responsible for. A major challenge for us-

ers is retaining their APC experts. Many are setting up programs that

provide an interesting and rewarding career within their organization.


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The business performance of process

manufacturing companies is directly

related to how well they use their assets.

When properly applied and maintained,

APC solutions play an important role in

achieving higher return on assets (ROA).

The Issue: Achieving Greater Value

from Assets

The process industries use asset intensive operations to convert raw mate-

rials into finished products. Successful business performance of these

companies is directly related to how well they deploy and use their assets

to generate profits. Although this seemingly simple rule sounds easy to

accomplish, the reality proves more challenging. In todays business envi-

ronment, companies have to deal with intense global competition, reduced

technical and operational staff, higher raw material and energy prices, stric-

ter governmental regulations, and rapidly changing demand.

Increasing asset utilization alone does not guarantee optimal business per-

formance and profitability. Even when operating at high asset utilization,there is considerable room for improvement because of remaining ineffi-

ciencies and the inability to capture higher spot market value opportunities

as they occur. Organizations looking to improve profitability and gain

market share are focusing greater attention on their customers needs. This

requires the development of differentiated products and more frequent

changeovers. Companies are not only placing an

emphasis on increasing capacity, but also on op-

timization product quality, processes, and assets.

Companies are attempting to increase agility and

flexibility so that plants can efficiently executeproduction plans and profitably capture new op-

portunities.

Obviously, Advanced Process Control (APC) and Optimization solutions

play an important role in achieving higher return on assets (ROA). APC

reduces process variability and inefficiency, improves product quality, and

allows operations to push constraints to the limits. With more frequent

grade changes, advanced solutions are needed to effectively manage prod-

uct transitions and provide the necessary agility to improve profitability.

Over the years, APC has decisively demonstrated its value. Many leading

companies have successfully applied APC to their most important process

units. Significant benefits include:

Increasing throughput by up to five percent

Improving yields up to ten percent


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ARC believes that companies able to

methodically implement, use, and

maintain APC applications at the lowest

cost and generate the highest value over

its lifecycle will have a distinct

competitive advantage.

Reducing energy usage

Reducing raw material usage

Improving product quality

Improving plant stability, safety, and responsiveness

Achieving these benefits has not always been easy. APC is often perceived

as being expensive as well as complicated and time consuming to imple-

ment and maintain. If not properly maintained, typical benefits begin to

diminish soon after implementation because the model begins to differ

from the actual plant process. Consequently, APC has been reserved for

the most economically sensitive large-scale process units. Many smaller

process units still have no form of advanced process control and represent

an enormous opportunity for improving asset effectiveness. The situation

for batch and semi-batch operations is even more compelling.

Because of the benefits of APC and optimization solutions, it is important

for companies to develop a sound strategy for adopting, implementing, and

maintaining APC applications. In some industries, like refining, a signifi-

cant portion of the major process units already have APC applications,

however, smaller secondary units still do not have any type of advanced

control. In other industries, because of the perception, APC is highly unde-

rutilized even for large process units.

This report focuses on what leaders, competitors, and followers are doing

with respect to the adoption and use of advanced control technologies. Itexamines various situations under which the technology is applied and

how it is applied.

Improving Asset Effectiveness with APC

The increasingly complex nature of manufacturing coupled with the large

investments in assets by operating companies in the process industries

makes the need for automation and process control greater than ever. The

PID control loop is an integral part of the automation system. In fact, a typ-

ical manufacturing plant may have hundreds ifnot thousands of these regulatory loops that per-

form basic control functions. Traditionally, the

most complex process units use advanced process

control and optimization schemes implemented

on top of these regulatory control loops.


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In terms of automation functionality, regulatory control and APC serve

much different purposes. The primary role of regulatory control is to en-

sure stable, safe, and reliable operations while maintaining process units at

a desired or specified condition. It does not attempt to continuously im-

prove operations in an economically optimal manner.

APC, on the other hand, is a supervisory control application that coordi-

nates a large number of parameters to maintain control closer to operating

constraints and more favorable economic operating conditions. By reduc-

ing process variability, APC is able to push operations to run at conditions

that increase throughput, improve product quality, reduce energy and raw

material usage, reduce costs, increase operational efficiency etc.

In one ARC survey, users ranked APC as providing the best value among

advanced automation solutions. Ensuring proper ROI, however, requires a

concerted corporate-wide strategy and utilization of the latest innovations.

It also requires considerable in-house expertise.

Faster Time-to-Benefit with Improved Implementation Tools

Implementing an APC solution can be time consuming and costly. For in-

stance, refineries typically spend hundreds of thousands of dollars

installing an APC solution. Implementation usually involves several leng-

thy steps such as preconditioning and testing, modeling building, controller

integration, and commissioning. Numerous suppliers are now offering im-

proved tools that help decrease the time and effort necessary to implementsolutions and achieve faster time-to-benefits. Users still need to determine

what will be done in-house and how much of the effort to outsource to

suppliers and other third parties.

To reduce the affect of existing plant con-

ditions, PID loop auditing tools are

available that help bring the regulatory

control layer back to peak performance

and provide a sound foundation for APC.

In addition, implementing an APC solu-

tion requires that a representative

mathematical model of the process be

built. Simulation can be used to develop

preliminary models and aid in initial tun-

ing by providing idealized responses to

step changes in key variables, thus reduc-

Creating and Sustaining Value of APC Applications

Time

R

evenue

Cost

Time to Revenue

TargetBenefits

ContinuousImprovementContinuous

Improvement

SustainedPerformance

SustainedPerformance

ImprovedImproved

Sustain

Experience

Poor Support


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ing the amount of step testing required. Historical data can also be used in

the model building process. Furthermore, advances in automated plant-

step testing tools and methods are significantly shortening the modeling

building phase and reducing the level of expertise needed while improving

model quality. These tools and methods are also less intrusive and disrup-

tive on the plant than previous methods employed. These evolving tools

and approaches are driving down the entry level cost of APC and helping

to spread its use to new areas.

Another way that large companies are implementing APC projects faster

and at less cost is through corporate-wide deployment strategies. Compa-

nies are performing corporate-wide rollouts to expedite the implementation

process by taking advantage of acquired knowledge and skills learned from

each previous application.

More Versatile Operating Tools

Users now have a large range of APC technology to choose from to control

a large variety of units. The traditional linear multivariable controller finds

wide application across multiple units and industries and often provides

payback in less than a year.

Although a large percentage of applications are satisfied with linear APC

technology, there are several shortcomings associated with applying linear

APC solutions to highly nonlinear processes. Nonlinear controllers are

available that are, in general, more suited for such applications. Nonlinearcontrollers are popular choices in the polymer industries, but are finding

numerous applications elsewhere as well.

For years, manufacturers lacked a simple, powerful, and viable alternative

to PID control and traditional large-scale APC implementation. Single-loop

model predictive control offer manufacturers a practical option to augment

their control technology and strategies. A single loop model predictive con-

troller has several advantages over PID feedback control. Incorporation of

a predictive model allows it to compensate for process dynamics including

long dead time and can even close the loop on those processes that operate

in manual mode because the process dynamics are too difficult for simple

PID control schemes. Some single loop model predictive controllers can

operates in a multiple input/single output (MISO) mode to provide distur-

bance rejection.


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Inferential models or soft sensors are increasingly being used in the imple-

mentation of APC projects as well as for process and product quality

monitoring. Soft sensors have proven successful in the past for backing-up

essential hardware analyzers and in many cases totally replacing online

measurement devices. Now, they are becoming more prevalent in applica-

tions where an important quality variable is difficult, infeasible, impractical,

or just too expensive to attempt to measure with conventional equipment.

The benefits of using soft sensors in such situations include better control

and understanding of the process while saving money and improving qual-

ity.

The wide spectrum of APC tools is becoming more tightly integrated to

provide users with a common intuitive interface that reduces the time re-

quired to learn different applications. However, users still must be

continually trained and develop a strong fundamental understanding ofprocess control to ensure reaping the benefits of APC.

Today, companies are embracing real-time performance management as a

means to improve flexibility and profitability while coping with the reduc-

tion of manpower and the burden of monitoring assets. As such, making

KPIs visible about the performance of the controller is becoming more

common to ensure that it is being effectively utilized. As companies move

to the next level of performance by adopting rigorous optimization solu-

tions that work in concert with APC, it is imperative to monitor controller

performance to make certain it is operating correctly. Still, more needs tobe done in the way of providing KPIs that tie into business objectives and

provide actual cash benefit.

With more tools and better methodologies available to them, users are look-

ing toward applying APC to smaller units that were difficult in the past to

justify on an ROI basis. In addition, more transition and startup sequencing

technology will be integrated with control applications to provide safer and

more profitable operations. Incorporating rigorous modeling technology

into the controller will also extend its applicable range and accuracy. Ad-

vanced control techniques are also finding many applications in batch and

semi-batch operations.

Sustaining Benefits with MPC Performance Monitoring

Maintaining controller performance is often more difficult than the initial

setup, but it is the key to sustaining long-term benefits. Performance of an

APC application deteriorates over time due to equipment degradation as


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well as deliberate or unintentional changes in the operations of the process.

Feedstock, products, and ambient conditions are dynamic. Controllers

generally adapt poorly to these changing conditions and the APC applica-

tion must be adjusted to maintain maximum benefits. Without proper

maintenance, the APC applications will fail to provide any benefits and fall

into disuse after only a couple of years. Maintaining the benefits of an APC

application require that companies have a sound plan and established

workflows and best practices to ensure that tools, people, and processes are

in place to respond accordingly.

APC Best Practice Study Methodology

ARC has a long history of providing research and advisory services to endusers and suppliers in Advanced Process Control. For this particular best

practice, ARC conducted additional research to gain an

even greater understanding about current practices and

emerging trends. The current research consisted of a

survey and a series of in-depth interviews with several

process manufacturing firms. In both cases, ARC ex-

plored the practices manufacturers were using in terms

of four key dimensions People, Processes, Technology, and Information.

Each of these dimensions was further investigated across multiple

attributes that ARC has previously found to be important contributors to

performance.

Where appropriate, ARC best prac-

tice reports group responses into the

categories of Leaders, Competitors,

and Followers. Over ten separate

performance criteria were used to

rank the responses. For each survey

response, each of the performance

criteria was given a quantitative

measurement and the total used as a

ranking demarcation according to a

20:50:30 distribution of Leaders,

Competitors, and Followers.

Ranking

Leader Top 20%

Competitor Next 50%

Follower Last 30%

Others, 4.1%

Food & Bev, 2.0%

Pharmaceutical,

4.1%Power, 6.1%

Mining &

Metals,

8.2%

Oil & Gas, 10.2%

Petrochemical,

18.4%

Refining, 22.4%

Chemicals, 24.5%

Vertical Industries of Respondents


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Respondents

The majority of respondents to the APC Best Practice survey come from the

refining, chemical, petrochemical, and oil and gas industries. In fact, the

respondents from these industries account for nearly 80 percent of all the

responses obtained. Companies in these industries tend to use APC tech-nologies to a larger extent than other process industries. Remaining

respondents came from the food and beverage, metals and mining, phar-

maceutical, and power industries.

People

Effective use of APC is highly dependent upon the knowledge and skills of

a companys APC experts and upon its corporate strategies for implementa-

tion, use, and maintenance. Successful APC project implementation

requires the appropriate people to execute them. These people need to be

supported with the appropriate training and mentoring programs and have

access to other experts to further their own knowledge base.

Sustaining a staff of APC experts is the primary challenge facing most

manufacturing companies. To deliver successful projects consistently and

reliably, leading companies are developing a standardized methodology

and workflow. These companies are performing corporate-wide rollouts to

expedite the implementation process by taking advantage of acquired

knowledge and skills learned from each previous application. They are

capturing and sharing best practices and adopting and applying a conti-

nuous improvement approaches to APC lifecycle management. Leading

companies are adopting complementary tools such as PID loop auditing,

automated step testing, soft sensors, simulation, and control performance

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Followers

Competitors

Leaders

0-5 6-10 11-25 25+

Number of APC Applications

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Followers

Competitors

Leaders

Less than 25% Between 25 and 50% Between 50 and 75% Over 75%

APC Implementation Outsourcing


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monitoring that reduce the time, effort, and cost of deploying APC solu-

tions.

Instances where unexpected and abnormal situations arise are a major con-

cern for most companies. In cases of this nature, the leading companies

have established collaborative teams to resolve the issue. Typically, this

entails securing assistance and collaborating with in-house or external ex-

perts at different locations. The ability to share information is crucial to

successful problem resolution.

Organizational Aspects APC Implementation

The majority of users supplement their own resources with third-party or

supplier resources. A major difference between leaders, competitors, and

followers is how much of a project is implemented with in-house resources

and how much is outsourced.

Leading companies view APC as providing them with a competitive ad-

vantage. As such, they adopt methods to ensure that they are able to

achieve the most value from their APC applications at the lowest possible

cost. This means performing the majority of APC implementation them-

selves. They understand the value in a structure APC implementation

strategy and having the necessary skills to execute that strategy. Leaders

have established a standardized methodology to roll-out additional APC

applications. Leaders believe that they are able to reduce implementation

cost by 25 percent with a comprehensive strategy that includes keeping thebulk of the work in-house. About 60 percent of the leaders outsource less

than 25 percent of their project work. In addition, about 80 percent of them

have more than 25 APC applications.

Competitors and even followers view APC as a means to improve manufac-

turing competiveness rather than a means to develop a competitive

advantage. Accordingly, they have less skilled

experts and rely more heavily on third-party and

supplier resources for implementation. Followers

take nearly the opposite approach to the leaders,

with about 60 percent of them outsourcing more

than 50 percent of their project work. The majori-

ty, on average, have less than 10 applications.

There are little differences between leaders, com-

petitors, and followers with regards to the use of

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

Followers

Competitors

Leaders

D ed ic ate d Te ams Manuf ac turi ng Sta ff Enginee ring Staf f O ther

Use of Internal Resources DuringImplementation


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internal resources. Centralized engineering and dedicated teams are the

approaches used most often. Manufacturing staffs do not typically lead

APC implementation efforts; they do however, play an important support-

ing role.

In general, users employ a variety of methods to implement APC projects.

The following table provides an overview of these strategies.

APC Implementation Methodology Percent

Implemented with Internal Resources 16.2%

Implemented by External Contractor 18.9%

Implemented with Supplier Services 13.5%

Internally Led Initiative with Supplier Support 21.6%

Externally Led Initiative with Internal Support 13.5%

Large Projects External; Small Projects with Internal Resources 16.3%

Total 100.0%

Organizational Aspects APC Maintenance

The majority of users maintain their own APC applications. Leaders have

more in-house expertise than competitors and followers and consequently

take on a greater responsibility in maintaining their APC applications.

They typically achieve higher APC utilization while lowering their total

cost of ownership. About 80 percent of the leaders outsource less than 25

percent of their maintenance needs. Followers, on the other hand, are more

dependent on outsourcing and typically experience higher costs.

Most companies have not established a particular criterion for utilizing

APC experts. Only about 20 percent of the companies use a certification

process to rank their experts. About 10 percent of the companies are using

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

APC Expert Certificaion

APC Applications/ APC Expert

Yes No

Leading Companies Are EstablishingInternal Resource Criteria

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Followers

Competitors

Leaders


APC Maintenance OutsourcingStrategy


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a specific criterion to manage in-

house resources and expertise.

For instance, some leading

companies are closely monitor-

ing and limiting the number of

APC applications each expert is

responsible for. The criterion

typically ranges between five

and ten applications per expert,

but is flexible depending on the

size of each application and the

skill level of the expert. The

trick is to find an optimum

number of applications that can be maintained without compromising the

effectiveness of the application and not underutilizing or over burdeningthe control experts.

As with implementation methodology, users employ a variety of methods

to maintain their APC applications. The following table summarizes the

approaches in use today.

APC Maintenance Methodology Percent

Maintained with Internal Resources 50.3%

Maintained by External Contractor 6.3%

Maintained with Supplier Services 12.8%

Internally Led Initiative with Supplier Support 13.9%

Externally Led Initiative with Internal Support 11.1%

Large Projects External; Small Projects with Internal Resources 5.6%

Total 100.0%

Organizational Aspects RTO Implementation

Unlike APC, users are still apprehensive about implementing big compre-

hensive RTO applications that are expensive and risky. Applying onlineoptimization requires a high level of expertise that is different from APC.

Most companies do not have extensive resources in this area. Most compa-

nies have less than 2 RTO applications. Leaders tend to utilize RTO more

than the competitors and followers. About 25 percent of the leaders have

more than 5 RTO applications.

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

Followers

Competitors

Leaders

Dedicated Teams Manufacturing Staff Engineering Staff

Use of Internal Resources for Maintenance


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Leaders are more involved with the RTO implementation than the competi-

tors and followers. Similar to APC, leaders view RTO as providing a

competitive advantage and insist in keeping in-house expertise to imple-

ment and maintain the solution.

Processes and Applications

There are numerous processes and applications that companies use to ob-

tain value from APC. How each group applies the technology and to what

extent creates some of the major differences between the leaders, competi-

tors, and followers. For instance, each group differs as to where they place

their emphasis in terms of applying APC to large process units, small

process units, and batch operations. There are also differences among the

groups as to how APC is applied to different plant operating states. Fur-

thermore, the extent to which each group uses APC in each area of

application creates even more significant differences.

ARC includes in this category:

APC target deployment area such as large units, small units, and batch

operations

Plant operating state including steady-state, planned transitions, and

abnormal situations

Extent of deployment (saturation or penetration), i.e., the number of

APC applications as compared to the actual number of potential appli-

cations

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Followers

Competitors

Leaders

0 1-2 3-5 over 5

Number of RTO Applications

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Followers

Competitors

Leaders


RTO Outsourcing Strategy


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Current and Planned Use of APC for Continuous Units

Traditionally, large continuous steady-state operations have been the major

focus area of APC usage. These types of process units are complex and dif-

ficult to operate and have the greatest affect on the bottom line. Applying

APC to this type of operations has been relatively easy to justify on an ROI

basis. Other applications, such as small continuous process units are be-

ginning to get the attention of users. Without a scalable solution, these

units are more difficult to justify. Although both large and small units tend

to operate most often at steady-state,

they occasionally need to transition

from one state to another. Compa-

nies are also beginning to adopt

advanced control technologies that

help to better manage and optimize

these transitions. In addition toplanned transitions, there are, unfor-

tunately, unplanned or abnormal

situations that must also be dealt

with.

Currently, all of the leaders claim to

be using APC applications for some

of their large continuous units dur-

ing steady-state operations. In

addition, all of the leaders are cur-

rently using or deploying some APC

applications on their small conti-

nuous units during steady-state

operations. The leaders are also

looking to apply advanced control

techniques to planned and un-

planned transitions.

The focus of competitors is not as

broad as the leaders. Currently,

about 80 percent use APC on some

of their large continuous process

units. There is a significant differ-

ence between leaders and

competitors in terms of applying

APC on smaller continuous process

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

Small Units: Abnormal

Large Units: Abnormal

Small Units: Transitions

Large Units: Tranisitions

Small Cont. Units

Large Cont. Units

Leaders

Deployed Being Deployed Short-term Long-term No Plans

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%





Small Cont. Units

Large Cont. Units

Competitiors


0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%





Small Cont. Units

Large Cont. Units

Fo

llowers


Current Focus Area of APC Usage for Continuous Units


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units. Some competitors are considering applying APC techniques to

planned and unplanned transitions.

Only 20 percent of the followers are using APC for some of their large con-

tinuous units during steady-state operations. Another 25 percent are

deploying APC applications now. Since they have implemented only a few

APC applications, managing transitions with advanced control technology

is not a priority even in the long-term.

Adoption Level of APC

The results of the Best Practice survey show that many users have already

applied APC to their large continuous process units. The results indicate

that users have implemented APC on about 60 percent of their large

process units. With the high penetration of APC on large units, many com-

panies are beginning to look for opportunities to apply APC on its small-to-midsized continuous process units. ARC found that APC has been applied

to a little more than 15 percent of the users small process units.

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

All

Followers

Competitors

Leaders

Large Units/Plants Small-Midsize Units/Plants

Current Level of APC Adoption for Continuous Processes

The adoption level of APC varies greatly among the leaders, competitors,

and followers. For continuous processes under steady-state conditions, the

leaders have a high saturation rate of over 80 percent for both large and

small-midsized process units. Competitors indicate that they use APC on

the majority of their large continuous process units (over 60 percent), but

only use APC on 40 percent of their small-midsized units. Followers use


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APC on about 30 percent of their large continuous process units and are

just beginning to deploy APC on smaller continuous units.

Leading companies are applying APC on smaller units throughout their

entire organization in a similar fashion as they would for larger projects: on

an economic or Return on Investment (ROI) basis. Many companies feel

that current automated step testing and model ID software can cut the im-

plementation time down significantly. In addition, control performance

monitoring tools are making it easy to maintain benefits and update models

as necessary. Tools of this nature are reducing the total cost of ownership

of APC applications. In addition, some companies are leveraging lessons

learned by applying APC to many similar units.

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

All

Followers

Competitors

Leaders

Large Units/Plants Small-Midsize Units/Plants

Current Level of APC Adoption for Transition Management inContinuous Processes

The majority of large process units under APC control during non-steady

state or planned transitions appear to be small around 20 percent. For

small-to-midsized process units, the percentage under APC control during

transition is even smaller at a little more than 10 percent. ARC believes,

however, that the actual percentage for both cases is much lower. Inter-

views with several companies indicate that the majority of manufacturers

using APC during transitions are in the polymer industry. Many compa-

nies in this industry have fully automated grade changes. Companies

outside the polymer industry indicated that they do not rely upon APC for

transition management. Many stressed the importance of training opera-

tors for these types of situation using Operator Training Simulators,


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providing operator guidance, and using sequence control particularly for

startups and shutdowns.

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

All

Followers

Competitors

Leaders

Large Units/Plants Small-Midsizde Units/Plants

Current Level of APC Adoption for Abnormal Situations inContinuous Processes

Only a small fraction of the survey respondents large and small-to-

midsized units have advanced technology for detecting and preventing ab-

normal situations. The interviewees do not trust APC during these types of

situations. They rely upon other methods such as sequence control and

Emergency Shut-Down (ESD) systems to name a few.

ARC believes that there is an enormous opportunity for manufacturers to

improve asset utilization with the detection and prevention of abnormal

situations. Abnormal situations are costly. They can cause production

downtime, emergency repair, equipment damage, environmental damage,

product variability, injury and even death.

Potential problems of using advanced technology for detecting process and

equipment faults include difficulties in implementing and maintaining the

application as well as interpreting the results to avoid false positives.

Transition Management

Most plants do not always operate at steady-state and do not always rely

upon APC to manage transitions. Instead, they use varying degrees of ma-

nual and automated procedures to manage its complex procedures during

shutdown, startup, grade changes, and other planned and non-planned un-

steady-state events. MPC has the potential to be used to mitigate potential


20/32



process threats by reducing operating

rates and bringing the plant to a safe

state. Unfortunately, moving beyond its

initial purpose has been slow to devel-

op.

Today, the common methods of manag-

ing transitions include providing

guidance and operator assistance, se-

quence control, and to a much lesser

extent MPC. Our research indicates that

there are no major differences among

the leaders, competitors, and followers

concerning the objectives using these

methods. It appears that improvingquality, increasing throughput, safety,

and energy savings are top priorities for

providing operator assistance and guid-

ance during transitions. Man-hour

savings and improving switchover

speeds do not appear to be a priority.

For sequence control, safety appears to

be the top priority. Other highly rated

objectives are increasing throughput,improving quality, and switch over

speed. Less important objectives in-

clude man-hour savings and increasing

energy savings.

Two very important objectives clearly

emerged for model predictive control

during non-steady state operations: im-

proving quality and improving

throughput. A second group of objec-

tives appear to be important to

manufacturers as well. This group con-

sists of safety, increasing energy savings,

and increasing switch over speeds. Again, process manufacturing compa-

nies rate man hour savings as one of the less important objectives.

0 % 1 0% 20 % 30 % 4 0% 5 0% 60 % 7 0% 8 0% 90 % 1 00%

Man-Hour Saving

Faster Swith Over

Improve Quality

Increase Throughput

Increase Energy Savings

Safety Consideration

Very Important Important Somewhat Important Less Important Not Important

Transition Management Objectives for MPC

0 % 1 0% 2 0% 3 0% 4 0% 50 % 60 % 7 0% 80 % 9 0% 10 0%

Man-Hour Saving

Faster Swith Over

Improve Quality

Increase Throughput




Transition Management Objectives for

Sequence Control

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Man-Hour Saving

Faster Swith Ove r

Improve Quality

Increase Throughput



Ve ry I mp or ta nt Imp or ta nt S ome wh at Imp or tan t L ess Imp or tan t No t Imp or tan t

Transition Management Objectives for OperatorAssistance


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Current and Planned Use of Online Optimization

Unlike APC, which has proven to be a mainstream control technology, ex-

hibiting rapid growth, RTO usage is tentative and its adoption is slow.

There are certain situations, however, where RTO is being readily applied,

e.g., ethylene plants and refinery blending. In these cases, it is appropriate

because there is an economic optimization possible. In many other cases, it

does not make sense because the operating

philosophy is fixed and does not lend itself

to the flexibility required for applying RTO.

Other areas where optimization is useful

includes utilities and fuel gas systems. Al-

though the technology has been around for

a while, it is still not easy to maintain. The

large complex models and many process

measurements increase the risk of failure.

Recently, however, ARC has seen a trend

toward smaller scope projects to reduce the

risk associated with large scale, costly

projects that ultimately fail or are too diffi-

cult to maintain and are turned off within a

year or two of implementation. In addition,

a few companies are developing and using

rigorous models in an advisory and deci-

sion support open-loop fashion. The

advantage is that the cost and risk is lower.

The use of a real-time On-Demand deci-

sion support system using validated models

and current plant data has the potential to

improve asset effectiveness by monitoring

the performance of equipment and process

units. Since these support tools are model

based, users can perform what-if analysis to

see how their actions affect plant perfor-mance.

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Batch

Dyn Opt

Small Units

Large Units

Leaders


0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Batch

Dyn Opt

Small Units

Large Units

Competitiors


0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Batch

Dyn Opt

Small Units

Large Units

Followers


Current Focus Area of Optimization


22/32



0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

All

Followers

Competitors

Leaders

Large Units Small Units Dynamic Optimization Batch Optimization

Current Level of Adoption for Online Optimization for Various Situations

Still, respondents of the survey indicate that large continuous units are the

major area of focus. Leaders, competitors, and even followers have imple-

mented online optimization on their large continuous units. Nearly half of

all the companies surveyed have implemented or are implementing at least

one online optimization application on a large process unit. Although

many have not yet implemented online optimization for smaller continuous

units, nearly one-third of the respondents state that they have plans to do

so within the next two years. Other areas, such as transient operations and

batch operations will lag behind.

The actual saturation or penetration of online optimization application is

still relatively small. The leaders are the only group that deploys online

optimization to any significant extent.

For small-midsize continuous units, users rate increasing throughput and

improving energy savings as key objectives. However, improving quality

and reducing material costs rate quite high as well. For batch operations,

users specify key objectives as improving quality and increasing through-

put.

APC for Batch Operations

The most used approach for batch control is S88 automation and recipe

management. However, manufacturers also use a variety of other ad-

vanced control techniques to help control and improve their batch

operations. These techniques include profile control, run-to-run control,


23/32



model predictive control, and using soft sensors to predict product quality.

For batch operations, leaders tend to use soft sensor over other techniques.

Profile control is also a popular choice among the leaders and is being im-

plemented for numerous batch applications. Leaders, on average, deploy

advanced techniques at twice the rate of the competitor group.

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

All

Followers

Competitors

Leaders

Soft Sensors Profile Control Run-to-Run Control MPC

Current Level of APC Adoption for Batch Processes

MPC has not yet taken hold in the batch area. MPC usage for all groups

combined is only a small fraction of potential applications. However, lead-

ers are deploying MPC on some of their batch operations with considerable

success. The benefits for batch operations are just as compelling as they are

for continuous processes. For example, one chemical company is using

MPC on several batch reactors at one of its plants. Prior to MPC implemen-

tation, the reactors used PI temperature control. The dynamic behavior of

the exothermic chemical reactions caused the PI control to oscillate between

heating and cooling. About 5 to 10 percent of the time, the oscillations were

large enough to initiate a safety shutdown before the completion of the

two-hour batch run.

The company decided to use MPC on the reactors. The main reactor usesapproximately 20 different recipes. It took about 4 months to perform the

model identification process for all 20 recipes using data collected from

open loop experiments. Since implementing MPC, the company has nearly

eliminated all process stops.


24/32



Technology

The technology used by companies contributes significantly to the business

benefits they achieve. Leaders, competitors, and followers all have access

to similar technology; however, some companies are able to deploy and

exploit it more extensively to obtain greater benefits and a competitive ad-vantage. Within the technology category, ARC examined the similarities

and differences of manufacturers regarding their use of performance moni-

toring applications for both regulatory control and APC. ARC also

examined commonalities and differences among users concerning integra-

tion between APC and advanced plant applications such as alarm

management, plant asset management, LIMS, management of change, and

plant databases. ARC did not include in this section specific APC technol-

ogy such as nonlinear controllers, fault detection, soft sensors, etc. because

many of these technologies are implicit in the other sections.

Control Performance Monitoring

Over the past couple of years, ARC has noted that performance monitoring

of control asset is getting a significant amount of attention from process

companies. The reason for this is simple, tight process control is one of the

critical factors in achieving consistent product quality and high asset effec-

tiveness. Maintaining control assets at peak performance is challenging to

say the least. Organization must be constantly vigilant to prevent deteri-

oration of performance of regulatory control loops and APC since they are

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Regulatory

APC

Regulatory

APC

Regulatory

APC

Followers

Competitors

Leaders


Control Performance Monitoring Focus


25/32



essential to operating the plant at peak

efficiency. Most companies have ade-

quate maintenance programs concerning

the reliability of equipment; they often

lack similar capabilities for regulatory

control and APC. In addition, since con-

trol engineers typically are responsible for

hundreds of control loops, it is not possi-

ble or even advisable to attempt to have

all your loops run optimally since the

time, effort, and expense are exorbitant.

Hence, the need for monitoring applica-

tions that indicate which improvement

efforts to control performance provide the

largest benefits

Companies are rapidly deploying tools to

monitor the performance of control assets

including PID loops and Advanced

Process Controllers. The results of the

survey confirm this observation. About

60 percent of the companies surveyed in-

dicate that they have implemented or are

in the process of implementing both Ad-

vanced Process Control and regulatory

control performance monitoring applica-

tions. Only 20 percent of the respondents

do not have immediate plans to imple-

ment Advanced Process Control

monitoring and only 12 percent do not

have short-term plans to adopt regulatory

loop monitoring. A small percentage of

companies have their own in-house solution.

There are some striking difference between leaders, competitors, and fol-

lowers. All of the leaders are using some form of regulatory control

monitoring application. This does not mean that they are using it on every

regulatory loop, only that they are using it for some important aspect with

their organization. Nearly 80 percent of the leaders indicate that they use

APC monitoring applications. This is in stark contrast to competitor, where

about 20 percent of them are currently using some form of control monitor-

Performance Monitoring: COTS vs. In-HouseDevelopment

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

Regulatory

APC

Leaders

COT In-House Combination

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

Regulatory

APC

Com

petitors


0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

Regulatory

APC

Fo

llowers



26/32



ing applications. A striking difference between

competitors and followers is that the majority of

competitors are in the process of adopting con-

trol performance monitoring applications.

An interesting point about monitoring ap-

tions is that more leaders use less commercial-

off-the-shelf products than either competitors or

followers. The real difference is that they tend

to use a commercial module that is customized

and integrated with their in-house applications.

Automation Integration with Plant

Applications Used for Process Control

For the past several years, ARC has beenpousing the need and benefits of integration of

plant systems to improve visibility of

tion, performance analysis, and distribution to

create an agile and flexible enterprise. Compa-

nies are clearly seeing the value in integrating

process data. Nearly all leaders, competitors,

followers have integrated, at least some portion,

of their process and control applications.

Over the past several years, companies havemade progress in integrating their Laboratory

Information Management Systems (LIMS) with

production operations. Companies are also

lizing that alarm management is becoming an

important element to safe and reliable operations. Function change history

or management of change (MOC) is often overlooked, but with the com-

plexity of automation and production systems increasing, and experienced

personnel, decreasing function change history is rapidly growing in

tance. Many companies are making progress in this area, but ARC feels

that they are not doing enough in a multi-supplier environment. Most

companies still have not done much in the integration of plant asset man-

agement area.

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Process Data Storage

Alarm History

MOC

LIMS

PAM

Leaders

Fu ll y In te grate s Be in g In te grate d S ho rt- te rm Lon g-te rm No P l an s

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Proce ss Data Storage

Alarm History

MOC

LIMS

PAM

Competitiors

F ul ly I nte grate s Be in g In te grate d S ho rt- te rm Lon g-te rm No P lan s

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Process Data Storage

Alarm History

MOC

LIMS

PAM

Followers

Fully Integrates Being Integrated Short-term Long-term No Plans

Current Level of Automation Integrationfor Plant Databases for Process Control


27/32



There are significant difference between the

leaders, competitors, and followers in terms

of the level of automation integration of

plant databases used for process control.

With the exception of plant asset manage-

ment, most leaders have integrated a

significant portion of the automation and

plant applications. Most of the competitors

have integrated or are currently integrating

automation with plant applications. Unfor-

tunately, the progress of the followers lags

significantly behind the leaders and com-

petitors.

Information

Companies use a variety of methods to ob-

tain information and KPIs about the

process, assets, and about the automation

system so that they can make real-time ad-

justments to the process, initiate process

improvements, and maintain a high per-

formance level of automation systems.

Control Performance Monitoring

It was noted earlier that performance moni-

toring software for control assets is getting

a lot of attention from users. Some of the

important KPIs that users find useful for

monitoring regulatory control loops include

% utilization, % control accuracy, % loops at

limit, and % loops normal. For APC control monitoring, % utilization is the

most significant KPI.

ARC found that there are no major differences among leaders, competitors,

and followers concerning which KPIs that find useful. However, there are

differences between the groups for the actual KPI or metric because of the

fundamental differences in skill levels of their experts and the emphasis

upon which they place on their APC applications.

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Alarm History

Alarm Analysis: Frequency

Alarm Analysis: Combination

Alarm Filtering

State Based Alarming

Alarm Analysis: Root Cause

Reducing Standing Alarms

Reducing Peak Alarms

Leaders

Deployed Being Integrated Short-term Long-term No Plans

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Alarm History

Alarm Analysis: FrequencyAlarm Analysis: Combination

Alarm Filtering





Competitiors

De ployed Being Integrated Short-ter m L ong-ter m No Plans

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Alarm History

Alarm Analysis: Frequency

Alarm Analysis: Combination

Alarm Filtering





Followers

Deployed Be ing Integrate d Shor t-term L ong-te rm No Plans

Current Level of Adoption and Functionalityof Alarm Management Applications


28/32



With their superior skill level and their ability to make APC a competitive

advantage, leaders are able to achieve an APC utilization of over 95 percent.

Competitors achieve an 88 percent APC utilization. However, followers are

struggling to keep pace. Their APC utilization is around 60 percent. APC

utilization for followers is quite low because of number of companies had

difficulty keeping their APC up and running at all.

Alarm Management

Alarm management is one of the most undervalued and underutilized as-

pects of process automation. The primary issue with alarm systems is there

is too much information for an operator to assimilate and act on. Many of

the alarms in existence today are often related only to the process variablethey are connected to, they are not aware of other alarms. This can result in

a phenomenon known as alarm showers or cascading alarms. These occur

when one failure causes many process variables to trip their preset alarms.

The result can be catastrophic when the quantity of alarms masks the real

source of the problem and causes delays in

operator corrective actions.

The first step toward an effective alarm

management program is to develop a sound

alarm management philosophy. Next, thereneeds to be a recognized best practice for

alarming, and a methodology that provides a

framework to execute these best practices

and facilitate continuous improvement.

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

% Loops Normal

% Loops at Limit

Control Accuracy

Prediction Accuracy

% Utiliztion


0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

% Loops Normal

% Loops at Limit

Control Accuracy

Prediction Accuracy

% Utiliztion

Very Impor tant I mpor tant S omewhat Impor ta nt L es s I mpor tant Not I mpor ta nt

KPIs for Regulatory Control KPIs for APC

KPI for APC Monitoring

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

Followers

Competitors

Leaders

APC % Utilization


29/32



There is currently a big gap between what the leaders are doing compared

to what the rest of the companies are doing

with respect to implementing an alarm man-

agement solutions. In nearly every aspect of

alarm management functionality, the leaders

already have or are in the process of imple-

menting a rich set of functions that include

storing and analyzing alarm history, doing

alarm filtering, analyzing root causes, and

working toward reducing standing and peak

alarms.

Operator Assistance and Decision Support

The current level of adoption for operations assistance and decision support

applications is broad. All companies have implemented or are in the

process of implementing numerous applications that assist and guide oper-

ators in their daily routine. ARC did not find any significant differences in

the categories of quality control, performance monitoring, sensor diagnos-

tics, efficiency monitoring, and PV-MV correlation. The difference between

leaders, competitors, and followers in control monitoring were noted else

ware.

Data Analysis Applications

There are a number of companies that are using data mining technologiesto improve quality control, identify key process factors, estimate key prop-

erties, improve batch operations, and detect critical conditions. The level of

adoption is not is nearly evenly spread

among the applications.

To perform the data mining and analysis,

principle component analysis and multiple

regressions are the most common techniques

employed, particularly for improving quali-

ty control, identifying key process factors,and estimating key properties. Root cause

analysis is used significantly for determining

the cause of critical conditions and events.

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Abnormal Situation Detection

Improve Batch Ops

Improve QC

ID Key Proce ss Factors

Estimate Ke y Properties


Data Analysis Applications

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Control Monitoring

PV-MV Correlation

Efficiency Monitoring

Sensor Diagnostics

Performance Monitoring

QC

Deployed Being Integrated Short-term Long-term No Plans

Operator Assistance and Decision Support


30/32



Best Practice Recommendations

For most process manufacturers, improving asset effectiveness by using

best practices described in this report will require significant changes in

culture, organizational philosophy, and business practices. The best prac-

tices are aligned according to the four dimensions of People, Processes and

Applications, Technology, and Information.

People

Create program to attract and retain highly skilled APC experts.

Leverage in-house skills to implement and maintain APC applications

Establish standardized methodology for APC implementation, use, and

maintenance that includes continuous improvements, lessons learned,

collaboration, and shared practices.

Processes and Applications

Develop plan to expand use of APC throughout organization. In addi-

tion to traditional targets of large units, look for other opportunities on

smaller units and batch operations.

Deploy applications to manage automate transitions

Technology

Utilize latest technology for performance monitoring of control assets

Increase level of integration of automation, production, and operations

applications

Information

Adopt KPIs for control performance monitoring that translate into

business forum

Establish or enhance an Alarm Management program Reevaluate or adopt Decision Support Systems to ensure they provide

operators with timely on-demand information that improves opera-

tions

Adopt tools and programs to perform data mining


31/32



Analyst:Tom Fiske

Editor: Larry OBrien

Distribution:MAS-P Clients

Acronym Reference:For a complete list of industry acronyms, refer to our

web page at www.arcweb.com/C13/IndustryTerms/

APC Advanced Process Control

CMM Collaborative Manufacturing

Management

COTS Commercial Off the Shelf

DCS Distributed Control System

ESD Emergency Shutdown System

KPI Key Performance Indicator

LIMS Laboratory Information

Management System

MISO Multiple Input Single Output

MOC Management of Change

MV Manipulated Variable

MPC Model Predictive Control

PAM Plant Asset Management

PID Proportional Integral Derivative

PV Process Variable

QC Quality Control

ROA Return on Assets

ROI Return on Investment

RTO Real-time Optimization

Founded in 1986, ARC Advisory Group has grown to become the Thought

Leader in Manufacturing and Supply Chain solutions. For even your most

complex business issues, our analysts have the expert industry knowledge and

firsthand experience to help you find the best answer. We focus on simple,

yet critical goals: improving your return on assets, operational performance,

total cost of ownership, project time-to-benefit, and shareholder value.

All information in this report is proprietary to and copyrighted by ARC. No part

of it may be reproduced without prior permission from ARC.

You can take advantage of ARC's extensive ongoing research plus experienceof our staff members through our Advisory Services. ARCs Advisory Services

are specifically designed for executives responsible for developing strategies

and directions for their organizations. For membership information, please

call, fax, or write to:

ARC Advisory Group, Three Allied Drive, Dedham, MA 02026 USA

Tel: 781-471-1000, Fax: 781-471-1100, Email: [email protected]

Visit our web pages at www.arcweb.com


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