Process Control Guide is a practitioner-grounded resource for engineers who work with distributed control systems (DCS) and process automation. It covers DCS architecture, the major vendor platforms, process control theory, safety instrumented systems, and the ISA and IEC standards that shape how these systems are designed, commissioned, and operated.
The aim is simple: explain how this equipment actually behaves on real projects, in the words an engineer would use on site, rather than repeating vendor brochures or textbook definitions.
Who writes it
The articles are written by Daniel Reed, an instrument and controls engineer with 14+ years of experience on oil and gas EPC projects across Asia and Africa. His work has centered on control and safety system engineering, commissioning, and completion — reviewing engineering deliverables, running FAT and SAT, participating in HAZOP, SIL, and SIF reviews, and coordinating with vendors through startup.
That experience is strongest on Honeywell Experion PKS and Safety Manager, Yokogawa CENTUM VP and CENTUM CS3000, Triconex, and Yokogawa ProSafe-RS, across a large oil and gas mega-project in Asia, an offshore brownfield in Africa, and a gas-to-liquids facility in Africa. Where an article covers a platform or an industry outside that direct experience, it says so plainly.
How the content is written
- First-person where the experience is direct. When an article describes something worked on firsthand, it is written that way.
- Disclosed where the experience is indirect. Some topics — for example batch pharmaceutical manufacturing, which is a different world from continuous oil and gas — are written from documented standards and vendor literature rather than hands-on work. Those articles open by saying so.
- Vendor terminology kept accurate. Each vendor names similar concepts differently — FCS for Yokogawa, C300 for Honeywell, AC 800M for ABB — and the articles use each vendor’s own terms.
- Sources for figures. Where a statistic or standard is cited, it points to the originating body (ISA, IEC, the vendor) rather than being stated as unsupported fact.
What you’ll find here
Content is organized into clusters: a DCS fundamentals hub, vendor deep-dives (Emerson DeltaV, Yokogawa CENTUM VP, Honeywell Experion PKS), DCS compared with PLC and SCADA, safety instrumented systems, process control theory, the ISA standards (ISA-101, ISA-18.2, ISA-95), and DCS applications by industry.
Corrections and contact
If you spot an error, or your experience on a platform differs from what an article describes, that feedback is welcome — please reach out through the Contact page. Process control is a specialist field, and the guides improve when working engineers push back on them.
Last reviewed: October 2026.