Instrumentation and automation of cane or beet sugar factories will lead to a higher degree of efficiency and also towards a sophisticated control and operation strategy of these plants. Instrumentation, however is the basic investment on this track. From the beginning of instrumentation more then 50 years ago until today not too many major changes have found their way into the industry. Today however we see a brand new way of integration of this very initial and basic equipment into the next higher level of equipment, the automation level. Especially the field bus technology is the key for this development; not only by reducing the amount of cable reducing but especially in integration of installation. On the level of automation today we do see a second generation of integration. The once separated binary control units PLCs are being combined with the high sophisticated DCS units. Thus allowing for a plant wide concept based on low cost standardised hardware and highly efficient software modules which will allow for an extension of the control philosophy into the management and execution level of the plant. In parallel it becomes possible to use advanced control strategies with these high end control systems which were never thought of several years ago. Fuzzy control, Neuro Fuzzy algorithms and so called "statistical process control" procedures find there way into the operation of the sugar factory. The outlook is bright for the plant operation in view of the increasing efficiency demands for sugar factories all over the world.
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