DCSs

DCSs are used to control industrial processes such as electric power generation, oil and gas refineries, water and wastewater treatment, and chemical, food, and automotive production. DCSs are integrated as a control architecture containing a supervisory level of control overseeing multiple, integrated subsystems that are responsible for controlling the details of a localized process.  Product and process control are usually achieved by deploying feed back or feed forward control loops whereby key product and/or process conditions are automatically maintained around a desired set point. To accomplish the desired product and/or process tolerance around a specified set point, specific programmable controllers (PLC) are employed in the field and proportional, integral, and/or differential settings on the PLC are tuned to provide the desired tolerance as well as the rate of self-correction during process upsets. DCSs are used extensively in process-based industries.