It’s become apparent that, while the primary goals of our instrumentation and control systems is to keep process operations under reliable, safe and accurate control, the amount of information they have made available has reached an almost overwhelming level, and there is no end in sight. This has put considerable pressure on the performance of the instrument shop.

Further muddling the shop’s complex task are rapidly changing hardware and software technology, the coming of the Cloud and big data analytics, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), augmented and mixed reality, cybersecurity concerns and digital twin technology, which all to a large extent depend on plant instrumentation for their informational foundation.

Let’s discuss some of the challenges facing current and future instrument shops and how to achieve the necessary performance.

Read the full story, "The instrument shop: How to optimize this key to a safe, efficient, and productive plant," from our sister publication Control.