298 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 7, NO.
3, MAY 1999
Future Needs for Control Theory in Industry—
Report of the Control Technology
Survey in Japanese Industry
Haruo Takatsu and Toshiaki Itoh
Abstract—This paper reports the current situation and future
directions of control theory and control technology which have
been practically applied to Japanese industries. The control
technology committee in the Japanese Society of Instrument and
Control Engineering (SICE) conducted a control technology sur-
vey of Japanese industry in 1995. The committee sent 300 inquiry
letters to Japanese manufacturing companies and received 110
effective answers which included 150 application examples in the
practical industries. After the inquiry, the committee visited the
leading companies and interviewed process and control engineers
to discuss their opinions and comments regarding the inquiry.
Index Terms— Advanced control, control application, control
theory, industrial needs, statistics of applications.
I. INTRODUCTION
I N RECENT years Japanese industries have been on a rocky
road because they are going through several major changes
in their business environment. The first one is a long recession
after the bursting of the economic bubble. During this time,
Japanese businesses suffered and were subsequently compelled
to adjust their employment and investment. The second is the
strong yen in the global business. The U.S. dollar changed
from 130-yen level to 90-yen level during one year, which
forced Japanese companies to cut their prices and reduce
profits.
To cope with these situations and to survive, industries are
significantly changing their management strategies. Companies
are restructuring their systems by developing the following
strategies: to simplify management and decentralization of
decision making, to move one part of operation from Japan to
other countries from the viewpoint of labor and market, to look
to the future and gain a new market instead of the conventional
one which may have reached its peak and so on. The utilization
of information systems is also becoming more essential to
adapt to change. The amount and kind of information available
are now growing more and more. Computer network, Internet,
multimedia devices are becoming cheaper and more popular,
which will affect the way to do business.
Manuscript received January 21, 1997; revised December 29, 1997. Rec-
ommended by Editor-in-Chief, M. Spong.
H. Takatsu is with the Control System Center, Yokogawa Electric Corpo-
ration, 2-9-32 Naka-cho, Musashino-shi, Tokyo 180, Japan.
T. Itoh is with the Production Technology Division, Mitsubishi Chemical
Corporation, 2-5-2 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100, Japan.
Publisher Item Identifier S 1063-6536(99)03995-0.
1063–6536/99$10.00  1999 IEEE
From the viewpoint of control applications, control tech-
nology can assist the existing production system to operate at
the maximum bounds of equipment to produce more profit.
Furthermore, advances in the information devices make it
possible to realize advanced control theory and control tech-
nology in the control production system. In order to investigate
the effects of economic and society changes described above,
the control technology committee in the Japanese Society of
Instrument and Control Engineering (SICE) has carried out
a control technology survey of Japanese industry. The same
kind of investigation was done in 1989 and the result was
announced in the CPC-IV annual meeting in 1991 with much
concern as a result. This time the survey is focused on the
practical issues of plant equipment investment: how to plan,
how to design, how to implement, how to evaluate and so
on. The differences between the previous investigation and
future trends of control theory and techniques have been also
investigated.
II. ACTIVITIES
In October 1995, the committee sent 300 inquiry letters
to Japanese manufacturing companies and got 110 effective
answers which included 150 application examples used in
industries. After the inquiry, the committee visited the lead-
ing companies’ plants and interviewed process and control
engineers to discuss with them and get their opinions and
comments regarding the inquiry.
1) Inquiry Items: Table I shows the inquiry items inves-
tigated. The items are classified into three groups: the target
plants to be applied at each site, the applied control technology
and the procedure of control system development, which are
described in the following chapters.
2) Responding Companies and People: Tables II–IV show
the statistical data as to respondents of the inquiry. Inquiry
letters were sent to all industrial plants. But most of answers
came from the raw material processing industries such as
metal, refinery, petrochemical, chemical, paper, power plant
and so on. Answers from mechanical material industries were
few in number. Respondents mainly belong to design, equip-
ment management and production management departments.
There exists little change during 6 yr in this respect. Answering
engineers have experience of from 10 to 14 yr, or more than
20 yr, which shows this time statistical data is reliable.
TAKATSU AND ITOH: FUTURE NEEDS FOR CONTROL THEORY IN INDUSTRY 299

TABLE I TABLE II
LIST OFINQUIRY ITEMS RESPONDS

TABLE III
AFFILIATION OF RESPONDING PEOPLE

TABLE IV
EXPERIENCED YEARS OF RESPONDING PEOPLE

TABLE V
III. TARGET PROCESSES TO BE APPLIED APPLICATIONS IN TYPICAL PROCESSES
As to the actual applications at each site, the abstract of
the controlled processes, applied control techniques, scale of
the control loops and so on are listed and categorized. The
major processes where recent control techniques are applied
are written in Table V: mold level control in continuous
casting equipment, steel board thickness control in rolling
mills, component control of distillation columns in refin-
ery/petrochemical processes, paper property control in paper
milling machines, combustion control in exhaust equipment
and so on.
From the viewpoint of control techniques actually operating,
linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG)/H-infinity control are used
300 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 7, NO. 3, MAY 1999
TABLE VI
CONTROL PROBLEMS
TABLE VII
NUMBER OF VARIABLES
TABLE VIII
RESPONSE TIME
in steel and other metal industries. Model predictive con-
trol and fuzzy control are increasingly employed in refinery
and petrochemical industries. Advanced proportional integral
derivative (PID) control such as dead time compensation and
feedforward control are widely applied in other industries
where conventional PID control are used. Objectives of these
control strategies are mainly to cope with loop interaction,
dead time and disturbances shown in Table VI. The increase in
the proportion of interaction issue suggests that multivariable
control has begun to be applied on many processes.
Table VII shows the number of measured, controlled, and
manipulated variables in applications, which indicates the pro-
cesses should be regarded as multivariable system. Table VIII
shows the response time of controlled processes. The response
time in steel industry applications has generally less than
1 s and in refinery and petrochemical more than 1 min.
Table IX indicates the adopted hardware devices where each
application is implemented. The ratio of dead time change
(DCS) is large but remains at the same level as in 1989.
The ratio of process computers, work stations, and personal
computers has increased. The ratio of process computers
is large in steel industry, but in petrochemical the ratio
of DCS is large. Process computers and work stations are
used to implement advanced control associated together with
production information. In this case DCS is required to equip
with backup control functions for emergency countermeasure
to computers down.
IV. APPLIED CONTROL TECHNOLOGY
In order to investigate the current application status of
recent control techniques, the inquiry asked the number of
applications, evaluation of results, technical possibility and its
expectation, key factors for successful and failed applications,
expected control system supporting environments and so on.
The results were compared with those of 1989. The 18
investigated control techniques are classified as follows.
TABLE IX
HARDWARE
Advanced PID Type: I-PD and two degrees of freedom PID,
decoupling PID, dead time compensation, gain scheduler, PID
auto-tuning.
Modern Control Theory Type: LOG regulator, observer,
Kalman-filter, model predictive control (MPC), adaptive con-
trol, H-infinity control/ analysis, repetitive control, sliding
mode control, exact linearization and control, optimization
control.
FAN Type: (fuzzy, artificial intelligence, neural network)
fuzzy control, rule based control, neural-network control.
1) Number of Application: Fig. 1 shows the application
status of above common techniques. Advanced PID type
control is widely applied and about 30% of respondents have
already used this type of control in their factories. MPC and
fuzzy control are most widely used among modern control
techniques and FAN techniques. Slightly less than 40% of the
factories have applied these techniques. Application of modern
control theory type such as LQG controller, observer, Kalman-
filter, H-infinity control/ -analysis is 10% of responding
factories but the applications are increasing rapidly in a
short period. Compared with the survey of 1989, applications
of decoupling PID, dead time compensation, Kalman-filter,
model predictive control, H-infinity control/ -analysis, rule
based control, fuzzy control, optimization are increasing more
and more.
2) Evaluation: Fig. 2 shows the total satisfaction of each
control technology. The satisfaction is increasing overall com-
pared with 1989. Advanced PID is widely applied and the
satisfaction is also high. Although modern control theory is
not applied much except model predictive control, 60–70%
of respondents are satisfied with the results. The satisfaction
of FAN is going up. The LQG control and adaptive control
go down a little. Dead time compensation, MPC, and fuzzy
control get high points. The effect of neural network and
H-infinity control indicate that satisfaction is increasing.
3) Technical Possibility and Expectation: The technical
possibility and expectation of above 18 control techniques
are quantitatively evaluated as indicated in Fig. 3. The
technical possibility shows the possibility to be implemented
on control systems and the expectation shows the expected
effect obtained when applied. The starting point of each arrow
is the mean value of whole respondents, the top point is that
of leading companies’ respondents. Consequently the arrow
shows the future trend of each control technique. In Fig. 3
the control techniques are found to be categorized into six
groups. Advanced PID type control is widely put into use at
plants with reasonable expectation. Model predictive control,
fuzzy and neural network have promoted in use with large
expectation. LQG control, H-infinity control and adaptive
TAKATSU AND ITOH: FUTURE NEEDS FOR CONTROL THEORY IN INDUSTRY
Fig. 1. Current application of control technologies.
control have reached the level of practical use but expectation
is small. Sliding mode control and nonlinear control do not
reach the level of practical use but with some expectation.
PID, auto-tuning, and rule-based control are already used but
the results are not so good as are expected. Optimization
control has reached the level of practical use with large
expectation.
4) Key Factors for Successful and Failed Applications:
Reasons for successful applications were asked in the
questionnaire. As is shown in Table X, the top factors for
successful application are the appropriate selection of control
strategy and control devices. The next are appropriate control
specifications, flexible system configuration, and appropriate
emergency countermeasure. On the other hand, when the
questionnaire asked if they have experienced in failed
301
applications, half of respondents selected yes. Table XI is the
key factors for failed applications. The top three factors are
the insufficient process analyzes, improper selection of sensors
and improper countermeasure to disturbance. Respondents in
steel and metal industries selected the sensor issues as the
top of factors, but fiber and cement industries selected the
insufficient process analysis as the top factors.
5) Surrounding Environments: Table XII is the insufficient
environments to support the introduction of control systems in
industries. Respondents consider the process modeling, control
performance evaluation, software productivity, and openness
of information data/human-machine interface to be the major
factors.
6) Application Issues: As common application issues to all
control techniques, “required engineering power is too high,”
302 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 7, NO. 3, MAY 1999
Fig. 2. Evaluation of each control technology.
“there is no need to apply a new control in use,” “benefit
of a new technique is not clear” obtained high points. As
to application issues of each control, the modern control
is pointed out to be difficult to apply. Advanced PID is
pointed out not to be enough to cope with disturbances and
perturbation of process characteristics. As for fuzzy control,
the lack of proper design and simulation tools are pointed out
and easy-to-use tools are desired.
7) Issues in the Future: Also asked were future issues of
control technology as is shown in Table XIII. Many re-
spondents say that new needs for control application should
be developed and the education of new control theory and
technique should be promoted. Improvement of adaptability
of each control is also selected. The issue of control systems
which were selected in the previous survey, are not pointed out
because the control system performance have rapidly improved
since the last survey.
V. CONTROL SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT FOR APPLICATION
The following is the survey results for control system
developments from the planning phase to the maintenance
phase from the viewpoint of control systems life cycle. In order
to obtain accurate, quantitative and effective data, the method
to select one or two among the given items are applied, which
results in a large amount of answers.
1) Planning Phase: In order to evaluate how much infor-
mation and knowledge of target processes are required for
control system developments, the inquiry asked who were the
main planners of each development. The response showed
that 45% of developments are planned in house, while 28%
are by domestic vendors and 11% are by domestic engineer-
ing companies. Overseas vendors and engineering companies
joined mainly in the oil refinery and petrochemical indus-
tries consulting in 7% of the respondents. The respondents
TAKATSU AND ITOH: FUTURE NEEDS FOR CONTROL THEORY IN INDUSTRY
Fig. 3. Technical possibility and expectation.
TABLE X
KEY FACTOR FORSUCCESSFUL APPLICATION
select the “forecast of application benefits” and “modeling”
as top two issues about which they have a hard time in the
planning phase.
2) Design Phase: The design members of control projects
are mainly their companies (51%) and domestic vendors
(32%). Overseas engineering companies are utilized for only
3% of oil refinery and petrochemical and chemistry control
design projects (3%). Fig. 4 shows the proportion of designers
303
TABLE XI
KEY FACTOR FOR FAILURE
in each control category. Control engineers are combined
with process engineers in order to investigate control designs.
Control techniques are roughly categorized into the following:
PID and advanced PID, FAN, model predictive control (MPC)
and modern control theory (LQG, H-infinity etc.). In PID
and advanced PID and MPC, the ratio of control engineers
and process engineers are almost the same, which shows
MPC has been already matured in useful software packages
304 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 7, NO. 3, MAY 1999

TABLE XII
INSUFFICIENT CONTROL SYSTEM SUPPORTING FUNCTIONS

Fig. 5. Operator satisfaction with each control.

TABLE XIII
FUTURE ISSUES

Fig. 6. Required maintenance manpower in control category.

3) Tuning Phase: Four weeks or more are required for

TABLE XIII(a)
PAY BACK PERIOD VERSUS INVESTMENT AMOUNT
Fig. 4. Ratio of attended designer in control category.
with less engineering effort required for its application. On
the other hand, the knowledge of plant operation is required
in the design phase in which process engineers contribute
significantly.
tuning new control applications according to 45% of the
respondents. 55% of commissioning is done in house and
30% is by domestic vendors. Fig. 5 shows the operators’
satisfaction degree classified according to control categories
described above. FAN gets high percentage which suggests
FAN can easily realize operators’ know-how of improving
controllers in the same way they think.
4) Maintenance Phase: The proportion of projects requir-
ing maintenance engineers after development is 88%, even
though every site lacks maintenance engineers with advanced
control background. This suggests an increased running time
ratio is recognized to be important, which is described more
at the evaluation phase. Fig. 6 shows the categorized result
of maintenance manpower. The ratio of MPC and FAN is
higher than PID and advanced PID, which means the former
is expected to run continuously. The ratio of modern control
theory is 71%, the lowest as was forecast. As a result of
another question together with above one, MPC and FAN
applications employ enough maintenance engineers to support
a high running level. In addition maintenance engineers are
expected to participate in the development mainly in the basic
design phase.
5) Benefits: With respect to the amount of investment in
control system equipment including utilities in Table XIII, 200
million yen or more was reported for 30% of applications and
50 million yen or less was 29%. Others are large in order
of “from 50 to 100 million yen” (20%), “from 100 to 150
million yen” (11%) and “from 150 to 200 million yen” (10%).
Half of the respondents say the capital payback period was
more than three years. The benefits of investment on money
base are shown in Fig. 7. The benefits are in order of quality
improvement, labor saving, production increase, energy saving
TAKATSU AND ITOH: FUTURE NEEDS FOR CONTROL THEORY IN INDUSTRY
Fig. 7. Realized benefits.
Fig. 8. The ratio of systems running over 80% during one year after
development.
and resource saving. The merit of quality improvement is
larger especially in the steel industry.
6) Evaluation: The report says the number of systems
which required a development time of 2–4 man-years and
those requiring a development duration of 0.5–1 yr were
both large. The top four technical reasons are in order of
the proper selection of control method, proper selection of
control system, easiness of tuning and proper setting of control
specifications. Fig. 8 shows the number of operating systems
which are running over 80% in each control category. This
is large in order of FAN, MPC, PID, and advanced PID and
modern control theory. The fact that the running ratio in FAN
and MPC is larger than that of advanced PID, will encourage
companies who are planning to adopt the up-to-date advanced
control technologies. On the other hand it was unexpected in
advance that the ratio of PID and advanced PID is lower,
which is the same level as modern control theory. The top
three reasons of failure in the whole system development are
listed as sensor issues, disturbance issues and lack of process
analysis. In addition issues of robustness and nonlinearity are
not a major concern.
VI. CONCLUSION
The committee has come to the following conclusion as the
results of this survey.
1) The hierarchy of industrial automation has progressed
steadily and continuously during the past decade. As one of
the key technologies, advanced control techniques have been
more widely applied to many plants than previous survey.
Many software package tools for process modeling, simulation
305
and controller design have contributed to applications of many
control techniques. Software tools on more upper levels such
as scheduling, planning, and management are expected in the
near future.
2) From the viewpoint of total production system devel-
opment, appropriate understanding of the process to be con-
trolled, keeping higher running time of the control systems,
improvement of related technologies to control system includ-
ing hardware and software and so on, are important and desired
to be realized. Recent simulation technology with rigorous
dynamic model will give one of solutions to these issues.
3) Education in new technologies, needs for control applica-
tions, benefit evaluation are always expected for the promotion
of control technology. How to transfer the technology to the
next generation, how to keep the system improving consis-
tently are desired earnestly in the industries.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The items discussed above were part of the survey activities.
The survey report consists of the statistical data and analysis
to predict the future needs of control technology in industry.
These will contribute to academic research of control theory
and promote the application of control theory in industries.
The authors wish to thank all the companies and engineers for
their cooperation to this survey.
REFERENCES
[1] The current status report of control technologies in Japanese industries,
report of SICE (96PG0007), SICE (Society of Instrument and Control
Engineers), 1996, (in Japanese).
[2] The current status of advanced control systems, their need and fu-
ture trend, report of JEMIMA, JEMIMA (Japan Electric Measuring
Instrument Manufactories Association), 1990, (in Japanese).
[3] S. Yamamoto and I. Hashimoto, “Present status and future needs: The
view from Japanese industry,” Y. Arkun and W. H. Ray, Eds., CPC-IV,
1991, pp. 1–28.
Haruo Takatsu received the degree from Tokyo
Institute of Technology in 1973.
He joined Yokogawa Electric Corporation. He
is a Control Systems Engineer and General Man-
ager with the Application System Center, Yokogawa
Electric Corporation, Tokyo, Japan. He has been
engaged in the development of control system and
control theory and implementation of control algo-
rithm.
Dr. Takatsu is a Member of SICE, IEEJ, and JSST
in Japan.
Toshiaki Itoh was born on January 13, 1943. He
received the degree from Kyoto University in 1967.
He received the Ph.D. degree in process control
technology from Kyoto University in 1997.
He joined the Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation in
1967. He is an Associate Director in the R&D Coor-
dination Department, Mitsubishi Chemical Corpora-
tion, Tokyo, Japan. He has been engaged in process
control practice, manufacturing system design, and
R&D planning. His main research interest is in
systematic approach for process design and process
control system design.
Dr. Itoh won the Best Paper Award from ISCIE in 1992.