Feedback from process industries

Reality is made up of singularities. It cannot be trapped in a forecast that would exhaust all its aspects.

The irremediable gap between the prescribed and the actual results from the insurmountable difficulty of enclosing all the situations likely to be encountered in the operation of a complex system within a total forecast. Thus, in the industrial field, it is up to the operator to reconcile :

• on the one hand, the requirements of the various lines of knowledge that designed the process and built the plants;

• on the other hand, the reality of the actual operation of equipment and installations, and the behavior of those involved.

Feedback in the process industries has three dimensions: technical, organizational and managerial, and thus takes on two aspects:

• on the one hand, it is an element of understanding and increased knowledge;

• on the other hand, it's an essential element of any managerial approach, involving the players and seeking progress.

The aim of this article is to present the contribution of feedback in the search for risk control in the process industries.