Statistical signatures used with multivariate analysis for steady-state detection in a process

A method of facilitating detection of a steady-state operation of a process in a process plant, the method comprising:

• collecting process data from a process within the process plant, wherein the collected process data is representative of an operation of the process and wherein the collected process data is generated from a plurality of process variables;
• generating a multivariate statistical representation of the operation of the process based on a set of the collected process data representative of the operation of the process;
• generating a first outcome corresponding to the largest amount of variation in the process from the multivariate statistical representation;
• generating a statistical measure of the first outcome;
• and
• determining the presence of a steady-state operation status related to the process based on the first statistical measure.

A method of facilitating detection of a steady-state operation of a process in a process plant, the method comprising:

• collecting process data from a process within the process plant, wherein the collected process data is representative of an operation of the process and wherein the collected process data is generated from a plurality of process variables of the process comprising a first data space having a plurality of dimensions;
• generating a model of the operation of the process using a set of the collected process data of the process, wherein the model comprises a measure of the operation of the process when the process is operating at different times within a second data space having fewer dimensions than the first data space;
• generating a plurality of outputs from the model of the operation of the process, each output corresponding to a different significant variation in the process;
• generating a statistical measure for each of the plurality of outputs;
• and
• determining the presence of a steady-state operation status of the process based on any one of the plurality of statistical measures.

A system for facilitating detection of a steady-state operation of a process in a process plant, the system comprising:

• a data collection tool adapted to collect process data from a process within the process plant, wherein the collected process data is representative of an operation of the process wherein the collected process data is generated from a plurality of process variables of the process comprising a first data space having a plurality of dimensions;
• an analysis tool adapted to generate a model of the operation of the process based on a set of the collected process data of the process, wherein the model comprises a measure of the operation of the process when the process is operating at different times within a second data space having fewer dimensions than the first data space, and wherein the analysis tool is adapted to execute the model of the operation of the process to generate a plurality of outputs each corresponding to a different significant variation in the process;
• and
• a statistical calculation tool adapted to perform a statistical calculation on each of the plurality of outputs corresponding to a different significant variation in the process to generate a statistical measure for each of the plurality of outputs, and adapted to determine a steady-state operation status related to the process based on any one of the plurality of statistical measures.