What is the primary purpose of instruments in a facility?

The primary purpose of instruments in a facility is process control. This encapsulates a broader function that includes not just the monitoring and measuring of various parameters like temperature and pressure, but also the active regulation and adjustment of these parameters to ensure that processes operate within desired limits.

In process control, instruments are essential for feedback mechanisms that help maintain stability, efficiency, and safety in industrial operations. By continuously monitoring various conditions, instruments provide critical data that can be used to make real-time adjustments to equipment, ensuring that processes are optimized for performance.

The aspects of monitoring temperature, measuring pressure, and collecting data are certainly important functions of instrumentation, but they serve as means to an end, which is to achieve effective process control. Without proper process control, facilities could face safety hazards, inefficiencies, or failure to meet production goals. Thus, process control stands out as the overarching objective that incorporates these other functions.