The term plantwide control is used only in the process control community. One could
regard plantwide control as the “process control” version of control structure design, but this
is probably a bit too limiting. In fact, Rinard and Downs (1992) refer to the control structure
design problem as defined above as the “strict definition of plantwide control”, and they point
out that plantwide control also include important issues such as the operator interaction,
startup, grade-change, shut-down, fault detection, performance monitoring and design of
safety and interlock systems. This is more in line with the discussion by Stephanopoulos,
(1982).