News

Innovation In Automation

“There is no shortcut to experience,” says Trident Automation CEO Yogesh Maheshwari. In a job where the need to adapt and problem solve is a constant reality, Trident Automation’s engineers have built up experience to handle the complex challenges of installing and maintaining ethanol plant distributed control systems (DCS) over the past 22 years. Trident was founded in the early 2000s to facilitate the needs of the burgeoning—and increasingly automated—ethanol industry, installing DCS in plants alongside the well-known designers and […] Read More

Ethanol plant on cruise control with the assistance of Trident

Golden Grain Energy turns Iowa’s bountiful corn crop into ethanol energy and to do it, they use “cruise control” for their plant. Each year, the corn crop is converted to 120,000,000 gallons of ethanol in a state-of-the-art production facility. The staff of about 50 manages daily production thanks to an efficient and dependable DCS system with oversight by Trident Automation. Trident has been working with the plant since 2004 and Golden Grain CEO Chad Kuhlers credits Trident with facilitating the […] Read More

2022 Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo

Attention Ethanol Producers—if you’re attending the Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo, make plans to visit us! The FEW is the largest, longest running ethanol conference in the world—and will be held June 13-15 at the Minneapolis Convention Center at booth # 214. The FEW delivers presentations on a range of issues facing commercial-scale ethanol production –we’ll be there to talk about control systems and the most effective products from Trident Automation. Trident Automation specializes in control systems innovation for a range of […] Read More

Trident Automation marks 20-year anniversary

Right now, ethanol plants are fermenting on schedule, factory processes are running efficiently, and new technology is being switched on thanks to Trident Automation. This year, the controls automation firm celebrates 20 years in business designing process controls for manufacturing environment. “We like to think of ourselves as ‘in the pipes’ type of guys,” says Jason Hurst, CEO of Trident Automation. “Our job is to regulate and control anything that flows through a pipe or requires measurement in an automated […] Read More

Uncover and secure vulnerabilities in your system

It seems every week stories of major companies getting hacked make the news. Systems are held for ransom, production stops, and in some cases it’s a disaster to the bottom line. A leader in petroleum refining and renewable fuels needed system enhancements. To protect this essential industry, the company embarked on a project to upgrade security systems at all their ethanol plants. To meet the established corporate standards developed on a Honeywell platform in their petroleum refineries, they needed a […] Read More

Get in control with Trident Automation

Meet Ryan Kuper, our newest employee who knows automation from the customer side and the consultant side. Ryan is Trident’s Process Control and Automation Strategist based in the heart of corn country, Ackley Iowa. He made the jump from customer to consultant after 25 years in process automation for the ethanol, food, and agricultural chemical industries. He provides an “inside the plant” perspective for customers and has some best practices based on real-life experience. Having worked on both sides of […] Read More

Case Study: New system in and running in four hours

Louis Dreyfus Commodities operates an ethanol plant in Norfolk, Nebraska. The plant needed a new operating system, but could not afford to lose any production time. Trident worked with plant managers to design a system and process that could be installed during a scheduled 3-day outage. For 12 weeks, teams did pre-engineering work in Wisconsin with installation designed to take hours instead of days. On site, engineers removed an APACS DCS, then installed a customized cabling system to use existing […] Read More

Minimizing variability and maximizing production

What if you could fine-tune your control system to minimize variability and maximize production? There are hundreds of process loops in an ethanol plant that can be a significant source of variability. Taking the time to identify variability and determining if control loops are a contributor is often complex and time consuming. Until now. Trident Automation is offering a software module that works in conjunction with our Trident Workbench called LoopPAC©, Control Loop Performance Monitoring. LoopPAC© is a software program […] Read More

Advanced and Enhanced

Trident Automation has been featured in an article by Ethanol Producer Magazine. Check out the article, Advanced and Enhanced written by Susanne Retka Schill. Read More

Advanced simulation allows DCS installation in under 36 hours

In just a little longer than one full day, Trident Automation installed a new operating system for Commonwealth Agri-Energy. The unprecedented speed was due to advanced planning and help from a simulation program. The firm wanted to increase ethanol production, which meant replacing its APACS system with Siemens PCS 7. The upgrade would allow Commonwealth to take advantage of upgraded HMI and more advanced controls, sequencing and model predictive control systems, along Trident’s value adds such as trend object.   But […] Read More