Complex industrial processes such as steel production, papermaking, car manufacturing and mineral processing use multiple layered and networked computer control systems, usually referred to as distributed control systems (DCS), to perform operational management, monitoring and automation for the whole production lines. Horizontally these processes consist of a number of the production units that fulfill the required production so as to produce the expected quality products. Vertically these production systems are operated by a number of control and operational layers such as planning and scheduling, operational control and low level control loops. Once the production structure is obtained, the only group of decision variables that can realize the required optimization and automation of the whole production line are the controlled variables for each production unit. In this regards, operational optimization and automation for the whole production line is a new concept that aims to optimize the operation of all the decision variables at different layers of DCS so that product quality and production efficiency can be optimized whilst energy and other consumption can be minimized. Of course, these are realizable under the condition that the whole production line would operate safely. This means that condition monitoring and fast fault prediction and control is also an important issue that has been addressed in both research and industrial sectors with respect to the automation of whole production lines. The purpose of this special issuewill be on the optimization and operational automation for the whole production line, where it is expected that such a special issue will boost wide range of interests in the research and industrial community in terms of automation for the whole production line so that product quality, production efficiency, energy consumption and effluent discharge can be optimized in line with low carbon discharge.
