Benchmarking for process control: “Should i invest in improved process control?”

Benchmarking to achieve world class performance is becoming an increasingly popular technique in all business sectors. In this paper, we benchmark wastewater treatment process control practice against other process industry sectors in Australia, and provide an evaluation of the general level of process control in the wastewater treatment industry. The benchmarking is based on criteria developed by ICI Engineering (Brisk and Blackall, 1995). We also present a quantitative statistical tool which can be used for performing a benefits analysis.