Patent 6993403 was granted and assigned to Praxair on January, 2006 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A method of monitoring plant performance within a facility in which having averages of cost contributing items such as raw material usage, product recovery, unit production efficiency, power usage and controller error performance are evaluated, statistically weighted to determine an overall performance factor. The overall performance factor applies an instantaneous indication of plant operation. Excursions of individual performance factors diagnose plant problems.