Page 18 - Practical Control Engineering a Guide for Engineers, Managers, and Practitioners

xviii P r e f a c e

The Curse of Control Engineering
The fundamental stumbling block in understanding process control
engineering is its language-applied mathematics. I could attempt to
skirt the issue with a qualitative book on control engineering. Not
only is this difficult to do but it would not really equip the manager
to effectively interact with and supervise the process control engineer.
To do this, the manager simply has to understand (and speak) the
language.
If terms like dy or ra dte strike fear in your heart then you should
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dt Jo
consider looking first at the appendices which are elementary but
detailed reviews of the applied mathematics that I will refer to in the
main part of the text and that control engineers use in their work.
Otherwise, start at the beginning of the book. As you progress
through it, I will often show only the results of applying math to the
problem at hand. In each case you will be able to go to an appendix
and find the pertinent math in much more detail but presented at an
introductory level. The chapters are the forest; the appendices are
the trees and the leaves.
You may wonder why much of the math is not inserted into the
body of the text as each new topic is discussed-it's a valid concern
because most books do this. I am assuming that you will read over
parts of this book many times and will not need to wade through the
math more than once, if that. After all, you are a manager, looking at
a somewhat bigger picture than the control engineer.
Also, you may wonder why there are so many appendices, some
of them quite long, and relatively few chapters. You might ask, "Are
you writing an engineering book or an applied mathematics book?"
To those who would ask such an "or" question I will simply pause for
a moment and then quietly say, "yes."

Style
The book's style is conversational. I do not expect you to "study" this
book. You simply do not have the time or energy to hunker down and
wade through a technical tome, given all the other demands of your
job. There are no exercises at the ends of the chapters. Rather, I foresee
you delving into this book during your relaxation or down time;
perhaps it will be a bedtime read ... well, maybe a little tougher than
that. Perhaps you could spend some time reading it while waiting in
an airport. As we progress through the book I will pose occasional
questions and sometimes present an answer immediately in small
print. You will have the choice of thinking deeply about the question
or just reading my response-or perhaps both!
On the other hand, if this book is used in a college level course, the
students will likely have access to Matlab and the instructor can easily