Chapter 35
Batch Process Control
W. H. Boyes
35.1 Introduction
Batch manufacturing has been around for a long time, says
Lynn Craig, one of the founders of WBF, formerly World
Batch Forum, and one of the technical chairs of ISA88, the
batch manufacturing standard. Most societies since prehis-
toric times have found a way to make beer. Thats a batch
process. Its one of the oldest batch processes. Food process-
ing and the making of poultices and simples (early pharma-
ceutical manufacturing) are so old that there is no record of
who did it first.
The process consisted of putting the right stuff in the
pot and then keeping the pot just warm enough, without let-
ting it get too warm. Without control, beer can happen, but
dont count on it. Ten years ago or a little more, batch was a
process that, generally speaking, didnt have a whole lot of
instrumentation and control, and all of the procedures were
done manually. It just didnt fit into the high-tech world.1
In many cases, the way food is manufactured and the way
pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals are made differs hardly
at all from the way they were made 100 years ago. In fact,
this is true of many processes in many different industries.
What is different since the publication of the ISA S88
batch standard is that theres now a language and a way of
describing batch processes so that they can be repeated pre-
cisely and reliably, anywhere in the world.
The S88 model describes any process (including continu-
ous processes) in terms of levels or blocks (see Figure 35.1).
This is similar to the ISOs Computer Integrated Manu-
facturing (CIM) standard, which uses a set of building
blocks that conceptually allow any process to be clearly
elaborated.
The highest three levelsenterprise, site, and area
arent, strictly speaking, controlled by the batch standard
but are included to explain how the batch standards lan-
guage can interface with the business systems of the area,
1. Conversation with the author at WBF North America Conference, 2006.
2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi: 10.1016/B978-0-7506-8308-1.00035-8
Enterprise Enterprise
Facility Site
Section Area
Cell Process Cell
Station Unit
Equipment Equipment Module
Control Module
Figure 35.1 Comparing standard models. ISAs S88.01 model (right) is
similar to the ISOs CIM model (left).
plant site, and business enterprise as a whole. The enterprise
is a common term for a complete business entity; a site is
whatever the enterprise defines it to be, commonly a place
where production occurs.
The second edition of Tom Fishers seminal book on
the batch standard, Batch Control Systems, which was com-
pletely rewritten by William Hawkins after Fishers death,
states that, Areas are really political subdivisions of a plant,
whose borders are subject to the whims of management
and so it (the area) joins Site and Enterprise as parts of the
physical model that are defined by management, and not by
control engineers.
The next two levels, process cell and unit, are the build-
ing blocks of the manufacturing process. Process cell is used
in a way intentionally similar to the widely used discrete
manufacturing cell concept. One or more units are contained
in a process cell. A unit is a collection or set of controlled
equipment, such as a reactor vessel and the ancillary equip-
ment necessary to operate it.
Within the unit are the equipment module and the control
module. The equipment module is the border around a minor
group of equipment with a process function. An equipment
629
630 PART | V Controllers, Actuators, and Final Control Elements

May contain Since the introduction of the S88 batch standard, every
Process Cell major supplier of automation equipment and software has
Enterprise
introduced hardware and software designed to work in
May contain May contain
accordance with the standard. Many suppliers now build the
Site Unit software required to implement the S88 standard directly
May contain May contain
into their field controllers. Many of those suppliers are cor-
porate members of WBF, formerly known as World Batch
Area Equipment Module May Forum. WBF was founded as a way to promulgate the use
contain
of the S88 standards worldwide. Currently it calls itself the
May contain Organization for Production Technology, since the S88 and
Control Module May S95 standards are in extremely common use in industry.
contain

Figure 35.2 Getting physical: S88 physical model.

Further Reading
Hawkins, William M., and Thomas G. Fisher, Batch Control Systems, ISA
module may contain control module(s) and even subsidiary Press, 2006.
equipment modules. See Figure 35.2. The control module Parshall, Jim, and Lamb, L. B., Applying S88: Batch Control from a Users
contains the equipment and systems that perform the actual Perspective, ISA Press, 2000.
control of the process. WBF Body of Knowledge, www.wbf.org.