Emerson automation for plastics recycling

 ReNew ELP, a UK-based advanced recycling company, has selected Emerson to provide the digital automation for its new plastics recycling plant in Teesside, in the north of England. Emerson’s advanced automation technology and software will help achieve safe, efficient operation of an innovative hydrothermal process that will convert end-of-life plastics back into their original feedstock, enabling the production of new plastic products, reducing waste and pollution.

Currently, many post-consumer plastics, including flexible and multi-layer plastic packaging items, such as films, pots, tubs and trays, are considered ‘unrecyclable’ via traditional mechanical recycling methods and are instead sent to landfill or incinerated. After a short first-use cycle, 95% of plastic packaging material value, or $80-120 billion annually, is lost to the economy, according to the World Economic Forum.

“By converting end-of-life plastics into fossil-replacement feedstocks, ReNew ELP has the potential to eliminate unnecessary single-use plastic and make the raw ingredients for a circular plastics economy, creating value instead of waste,” said Richard Daley, managing director, ReNew ELP. “Pivotal to achieving these goals is the construction of this first commercial-scale plant using a unique hydrothermal platform, and in Emerson we have found a valuable, long-term partner to create an advanced automation model for the further plants planned across Europe.”

A model of the proposed ReNew ELP plant

The ReNew ELP plant will utilise a ground-breaking advanced recycling process called HydroPRS™ (Hydrothermal Plastic Recycling System), that uses supercritical steam (high pressure and temperature) to convert waste plastics into the valuable chemicals and oils from which they were originally made. These products can then be used to manufacture new plastics and other materials.

“The HydroPRS process is currently undergoing a Life Cycle Assessment by the Warwick Manufacturing Group to understand both its environmental impacts and Global Warming Potential (GWP), alongside the CO2 savings from diverting plastic waste away from incineration and into advanced recycling,” said Daley. “Initial findings indicate a significantly reduced GWP when compared to energy from waste (incineration) and a favourable comparison to fossil naphtha, supporting the ambition of a viable pathway to net zero.”

As the main automation contractor, Emerson will be responsible for developing a complete automation and control solution to ensure safe, efficient operation of the demanding production process with minimum operator intervention. Emerson’s Project Certainty methodology, which digitalises project execution, will help deliver the plant on budget and on schedule, while its Operational Certainty methodologies will help ReNew ELP realise maximum operational performance and profitability over the lifecycle of the facility.

“Emerson has the ability to support the environmental sustainability goals of industrial companies through greater efficiency, expanded use of cleaner energy sources, emissions capture and improved management of waste materials,” said Roel Van Doren, group president of global sales at Emerson. “Through collaborative project engineering, advanced digital solutions and lifecycle services, Emerson will help ReNew ELP create a solution that supports sustainable practices and helps advance our goals to preserve resources.”

As part of the automation solution, Emerson will provide an integrated control and safety system, incorporating its DeltaV distributed control system and DeltaV safety instrumented system for process and emergency shutdown, plus fire and gas detection. The Emerson Plantweb digital ecosystem, incorporating wired and wireless networks that support clusters of advanced measurement instrumentation, will provide visibility to process performance and actionable data about equipment health. The automation system will feature a broad range of severe service and general-purpose control valves, on/off valves and pressure control technology. A range of asset management solutions will be deployed to enhance equipment reliability and increase process availability and throughput, while minimising the time operators spend in the field performing manual inspections.

The plant is expected to become operational in late 2022, with the first phase including one of four recycling lines, each able to process 20,000 tonnes of plastic waste per year.

E+H feels well positioned, despite CV

The Endress + Hauser press conference that reported their 2019 annual results today also reported minimal effect on output from the necessary measures taken to protect staff and ensure safe working in the face of Coronavirus.

From visits to a few Endress + Hauser locations around Basel, their factories, in marked contrast to most equivalent UK production sites, are spacious, and even historically had a large separation between work stations and production operators.  With this in-built advantage it was probably simpler to impose social distancing on the production floor.

Matthias Altendorf, in his comments on the effects of CV over the last few months, said that at peak times, over 10,000 employees were working from home. This was primarily enabled by their concept of a digital workplace, with an IT landscape based on a cloud based architecture. As standard, even without CV, employees are allowed to spend 20% of work time at home.

The major effect of the coronavirus pandemic seen so far has been a 20% drop in order intake over the last two months: this order intake has been assisted by an increase in orders via their website by 90% compared to last year’s levels.

An E+H diary of the effects of CV

Matthias Altendorf gave a comprehensive account of the effects of CV on the E+H operations.

“Ever since the first reports of the outbreak of a novel respiratory illness in January, the coronavirus has dominated our lives, professionally and privately. So you might be interested in how we are dealing with this situation and what impact the pandemic is having on our business.

We reacted early, and extensively, to the new situation. After all, we and our customers have a deeply ingrained safety and protection mindset. A task force at Group level is coordinating and communicating our measures and guidelines related to the pandemic. This team comes together each day – in a virtual environment – to discuss the situation, just like the Executive Board, which holds a daily video conference.

From the very beginning our motto was that we would rather do too much, too early, rather than too little, too late. Our goal is to protect people and our business. To do that, we are following two basic principles:

First, the health of our employees, customers and partners is our top priority. With our measures, we want to protect people from being infected by the coronavirus. And we want to do our part to prevent the pandemic from spreading further. In this respect, we also have a responsibility to society.

Second, we want to provide our customers with the best possible support. Large parts of our business concern system-relevant sectors. Important infrastructures and systems – such as water and energy supply networks, production of food or pharmaceuticals – must be kept running. We have a responsibility here as well.

After the first cases appeared outside of China, we declared a travel ban for Asia as early as January. We then continued to add measures more or less on a weekly basis. We canceled customer seminars, training programs, international conferences and trade fair events. We first banned international travel and followed this up with bans on domestic travel as well.

We introduced strict hygiene measures at our locations. We made hand sanitizers available and made sure that surfaces people come into frequent contact with are disinfected multiple times a day. We reorganized our work environments and workflows so that employees can maintain the required distances between one another. And we made sure that our employee restaurants maintain proper hygiene.

In mid-March we then required practically all office-based employees to work from home. That even included people in areas such as research and development, who rarely work from home. These measures are also designed to protect those who must continue to work at our facilities. Although there is a lot we can do remotely, manufacturing, repairing or delivering instruments is something you obviously cannot do from home.

At peak times up to 10,000 employees are working from home. Because our internal IT service provider Endress+Hauser InfoServe had already raised our IT infrastructure to a high level in years of dedicated work, everything is running smoothly. Secure and uncomplicated access to our data is possible from anywhere. This is the result of a project we launched five years ago: with the digital workplace we completely restructured our IT landscape and went from pure on-site applications to a cloud-based architecture.

The whole time we have managed to maintain the availability of materials at our plants around the world. And we’ve been able to ensure delivery logistics, despite canceled flights and restraints on shipping. However, there was nothing we could do about government-mandated temporary plant closures such as in Italy, India and South Africa. This aside, Endress+Hauser was and is maintaining its delivery capabilities.

Behind this are the tremendous efforts of our employees. These days you often hear talk of new  everyday heroes. Our heroes work in production, service and logistics. And they are working under difficult conditions in the office or from home, in small apartments, which they were essentially  unable to leave for weeks – for example our colleagues in France, Italy, Spain and Dubai – and sometimes   having to take care of children at the same time. Or they are continuing to work at the company under strict distancing and hygiene guidelines. All of them have achieved great things in recent weeks!

Despite all these challenges, we have managed to continue to provide our customers with excellent, extensive support. We are bridging the physical distances forced upon us by the coronavirus through digital and emotional proximity.

Our website endress.com serves as a high-performance platform for a wide range of transactions. With a personalized account, our customers can select the right product, configure it to their requirements and order it directly from us. Much like we are accustomed to in our private lives with online shops, our customers enjoy full transparency regarding the status of the order. This is a function that has been much in demand in recent weeks. And, of course, they can retrieve the latest documents, data and information for their instruments at any time and anywhere.

Interest from our customers in these options has grown enormously during the corona crisis. We currently have more than one million visitors to our website each month, an increase of 20 percent from 2019. Incoming orders via endress.com are running 90 percent above last year’s levels. Online business makes up more than 10 percent of the business in a dozen countries, a notable figure for our products that require such intensive consultation, and an indicator of where we are heading.

This applies to many areas. We have customer seminars and internal events in virtual space, we are successful with webinars and podcasts. We are also breaking new ground in service. With Visual Support we support customers remotely via an app. Using the camera in the customer’s smartphone or tablet, our employees can gain an insight into the situation. They can then provide precise instructions regarding what the customer has to do. We will offer this service to our customers at no charge for as long as the coronavirus is spreading.

Our colleagues at Analytik Jena are facing special challenges at the moment. As you know, our goal is to support our customers from the lab, to product and process development, all the way to the process itself. One step toward this goal was the acquisition of lab specialist Analytik Jena in 2013. Although the business is focused on industry customers, Analytic Jena has also been supplying customers in the medical industry as well as in research and scientific environments.

As the coronavirus broke out in China at the beginning of the year, our colleagues at Analytik Jena immediately jumped into action. Providing evidence of an infection requires preparing and analyzing the genetic material in the virus. Analytik Jena supplies the required equipment: dependable instruments capable of rapidly generating reliable results.

On short notice our colleagues at Analytik Jena China looked into how available coronavirus tests could be used in our instruments. They informed around 1,000 interested participants via webinars how the genetic material in the virus can be reliably detected. They also furnished several hospitals in China with the corresponding lab technology, including the emergency hospital in Wuhan that became famous because it was erected in just 10 days.

Endress+Hauser China has donated equipment during the corona crisis. Our instruments were installed in a clinic in Shanghai to ensure that it has clean water. Liquid analysis technology from    Endress+Hauser has also been deployed in Wuhan, where it is being used to monitor the wastewater treatment process.

The past weeks have shown that our Strategy 2020+, which we have been pursuing for five years, is focused on the right areas. The emphasis on our products, solutions and services and on the interaction and collaboration with our customers as well as our employees makes us more agile and creates opportunities. If we had not made such solid progress in the field of digitization in recent years, we would not have been in a position to deal with these new challenges so effectively. That’s why we will continue to pursue this path.

The same applies to our focus in the analysis area, from the lab to the process. The continuous  expansion of our sales and production networks has proven its worth, as have the large investments in innovative products. We will continue to work consistently on all of these strategic focal points.

One of these innovative products is the Micropilot FWR30, the first level sensor, which we developed specifically for the Industrial Internet of Things. The FWR30 is a radar-based sensor with 80-gigahertz technology designed for monitoring levels in plastic tanks – so-called intermediate bulk containers, or IBCs for short. These containers are often portable, or they are used at flexible installations. For this reason, refill orders are often placed only after the tank is already empty.

With the FWR30, this approach is a thing of the past. Our IIoT sensor is battery operated. It is fast and easy to commission and automatically connects to the cloud via wireless communications technology. The measurement values and the location of the container can be retrieved with a smartphone, tablet  or PC. This service is free of charge for customers who only want to monitor the fill levels. If needed, it can be expanded to a complete inventory management solution including supply chain tracking.

A lot of innovation can be found inside the new Proline Prosonic Flow G300/500. This instrument is an ultrasonic flowmeter for natural and process gas applications in the chemical or oil & gas industries.

Our developers worked on this instrument for six years. What makes the Pronsonic Flow G special is that it measures precisely and reliably even in wet gas applications. And in contrast to the differential pressure method, there is no pressure drop due to an orifice plate that wears over time and requires costly maintenance.

And that’s not all. With optional pressure and temperature sensors and software that we developed in- house, the Prosonic Flow G can calculate additional parameters and process variables such as mass and energy flow, methane content, density or viscosity. No other instrument on the market offers such versatility!

The next product fits in any pocket: the Liquiline Mobile CML18, a multiparameter handheld instrument for liquid analysis. The CML18 can be used to verify online measurement values from the process with sample measurements in the lab. The results from online and laboratory measurements often vary widely because the sensor technology, analysis process or environmental conditions differ.

This is where Liquiline Mobile now builds the bridge. We have taken Memosens, a technology proven in process applications for more than 15 years, and integrated it into a handheld instrument. All the sensor signals are converted into a robust digital signal that is not only resistant to moisture but guarantees data integrity. The Memosens technology also makes swapping out the sensor child’s play. And with our SmartBlue app, the Liquiline Mobile can also be integrated into Industry 4.0 applications.

For laboratory applications, Analytik Jena introduced the PlasmaQuant 9100 to the market. This analyzer utilizes optical emissions spectrometry with inductively coupled plasma – or ICP-OES for short – for routine chemical analyses. A unique feature of the PlasmaQuant 9100 is the high-resolution optics, which provide a high degree of sensitivity, accuracy and precision.

This instrument is designed for high throughput. It’s employed in the labs of our usual customers, such as in the food & beverage, life sciences and mining, minerals & metals industries. The PlasmaQuant 9100 analyzes sunflower oil for heavy metal impurities, tests antibiotics for contamination or determines the percentage of rare-earth elements in rock, for instance.

Product innovations such as these form the foundation of our economic success. But for us that’s not the only benchmark. With everything we do, we want to live up to our ecological and social responsibility as a company. Our goal is to further develop Endress+Hauser in all dimensions of sustainability.

When we erect new buildings, they fulfill demanding standards with respect to energy efficiency. In Canada we are even building a customer experience and process training center that will be energy autonomous. The building, in Burlington in the province of Ontario, will completely cover its energy needs from local regenerative sources and thus be CO2 neutral.

In the past year we launched the Endress+Hauser Water Challenge. With this initiative we’d like to improve access to clean water for people around the world. We kicked off the challenge last October with a charity run in Reinach. 250 employees participated as joggers or Nordic walkers, donating a small amount for each completed kilometer. The company then doubled the final tally.

The first international charity runs took place in Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Argentina. The coronavirus  has unfortunately prevented further events from being organized. But we’re happy to report that we were able to complete the initial aid project in Vietnam, where we permanently secured the  water  supply in a small village. We hope we can continue with the initiative very soon. Other aid projects have been identified in Brazil, India and Cameroon.

How will things proceed from here? The coronavirus will not disappear from our lives quickly. Hopefully, a vaccine and an effective medication will be developed in the very near future. But many months or even years could go by before that happens. Until then we have no choice but to accustom ourselves to the new normal and live with the pandemic.

In many countries we are in the process of returning some of the work-at-home employees to their offices in the company – maintaining the required distance to one another and strict hygiene measures including protective masks for when we leave our desks. Each loosening of the restrictions will require additional measures. This special situation will constantly demand new sets of behavior and novel approaches from us for an indefinite period of time, both at work and in our private lives.

We are still unable to estimate the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. But this crisis will no doubt leave its mark – on our customers and us. Furthermore, the coronavirus is not the only issue we are dealing with. The financial consequences of the pandemic are impacting us in an already difficult political and economic environment.

Tariff conflicts and political tensions, the structural crisis in the automotive sector and the pressure to decarbonize industry – all these things continue underneath the current crisis. The debt and low- interest problems were prevalent beforehand, and these issues will again gain momentum due to the measures governments and the central banks have implemented to shore up the economy and cushion the effects of the pandemic. It remains uncertain what the  short-, medium- and long-term   consequences will be for the global economy and our business. But there will be changes.

That can create a lot of concern. But fear and panic are not good advisers, and we cannot let ourselves be guided by them. Instead, we have to address the challenges with a cool head and a warm heart. We have to focus on responsibility and solidarity and reflect on our freedom. Because even in such a situation, we have a wide range of options at our disposal when it comes to taking action and shaping the future. And we will do everything we can to bring Endress+Hauser through this period.

As a company we are focused on safeguarding the health of people, securing jobs, doing our best to serve our customers and maintaining and developing our external network of suppliers, service providers and partners. To do that we are also prepared to accept financial losses in the short term.

Our experience from the 2008/2009 financial crisis will help us during this acute phase. Flexibility and agility are important whenever we find ourselves in a highly dynamic situation – that means moving  only as fast as we can respond to new situations as they arise and adjust the course when required. At the same time, we should not lose track of our long-term objectives. The combination of operational agility and long-term objectives is best mastered by people, our employees.

We can offset fluctuations in the workload of our production and sales centers by adjusting capacities and restructuring resources, by lowering working time accounts – even into the minus – and by making flexible use of vacation and additional company holidays. If necessary, we will also resort to working reduced hours for a while, but only after we have exhausted most of the other options at hand.

It goes without saying that all expenses will be subject to a detailed review. We will avoid expenses that under the circumstances are not necessary or at least not necessary at the moment.  Some minor   projects may be delayed. But we will carry out and complete the large investment projects as planned. We want to continue to develop our future capabilities; we want to maintain and strengthen them.

Because only when we adopt a long-term perspective can we safeguard the interests of our customers, employees and shareholders by strengthening the resilience and longevity of the company.

Endress+Hauser has always emerged from crises stronger. I’m convinced this time will be no different. Why? Because we have always performed solidly and made provisions during good times. Because we have a shareholder family behind us that is loyal to our customers and employees and takes its entrepreneurial responsibility seriously. And because we are an excellent company with enthusiastic customers, tremendous employees, an outstanding infrastructure and a unique portfolio.

But above all, we have a sustainable business model. At Endress+Hauser, everything we do is important for our customers. We can help them become even better and help them make their processes, products and production more efficient – in all aspects – so that they can increase quality, raise productivity and use fewer resources. This brings our customers forward in good times and even more so in difficult  times. And, after all, this makes the world a better place in which to live.

New Titanium sensor for Emerson ultrasonic gas flowmeters

Emerson has released the Daniel T-200, a titanium-housed transducer, for its gas ultrasonic flow meter product line, marking the first use of metal 3D printing to enhance the acoustic performance of ultrasonic flow meters in gas custody transfer applications. The robust design of the T-200 provides increased reliability, uptime and safety while achieving the highest accuracy class attainable in gas flow measurement.

In an ultrasonic flow meter, transducers generate acoustic signals that are sent back and forth across the fluid stream. The difference in the transit times of these signals is used to determine the fluid flow velocity. Signal quality and strength are critical to measurement accuracy, which is paramount in custody transfer applications. An error of only 0.1% can equate to hundreds of thousands of Euros annually, in a large diameter high pressure pipeline.

“The mini-horn array of the T200 could not be made without metal 3D printing technology, making it transformational to the sound quality and performance achievable through a titanium barrier,” said Kerry Groeschel, director of ultrasonic technology, Emerson. “Emerson is committed to developing innovative solutions that help our customers achieve safer, more efficient operations.”

This all-metal sensor housing provides a barrier from corrosive hydrocarbon fluids and wet gas, thereby extending the life of transducer components and ensuring stable performance. This unique design allows the meter to be hydrotested with transducers in place, steam cleaned while in the operating line and blown down – with no limits on the rate at which the meter can be depressurised.

The T-200 can also be safely extracted while the meter is under pressure without special high-pressure extraction tools, which reduces the possibility of greenhouse gas emissions during an extraction. The capsule which contains the piezoelectric crystal – used to create and detect the ultrasonic sound waves – is retractable as a single piece, for simplicity and ease of use.

The new design is rated for a wide range of operating conditions, including pressures from 1 bar gauge (barg)/103 Kilopascal (kPa) to 255 barg/25,855 kPa and temperatures from -50 to 125 degrees Celsius.

For more information please consult the Emerson ultrasonic flowmeter website.

E+H on course for growth in 2020

Endress+Hauser has reported on their 2019 financial year, and confirms they remain on course for growth. In 2019 the Group increased net sales by almost 8 percent, to over 2.6 billion euros. The Swiss measurement and automation technology specialist created 400 new jobs worldwide. At the end of the year the company had more than 14,300 employees.

“We have grown across all fields of activity, industries and regions,” said Matthias Altendorf, CEO of the Endress+Hauser Group. The strongest impetus came from the Asian region. However Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East all developed positively, but at a much slower pace. “With good product innovations, we have set a clear benchmark in the industry.”

In 2019, order entry rose faster than sales. “Endress+Hauser has started 2020 with a significantly higher order backlog than the year before,” reported Chief Financial Officer Dr Luc Schultheiss. He confirmed that in 2019 “The Group was able to maintain return on sales at the previous year’s level. We are satisfied with our profit before taxes.”

However E+H has lower growth expectations for 2020. They anticipate sales growth in the mid-single-digit percentage range, and aim to maintain profitability. “However, there are still many uncertainties,” stressed Luc Schultheiss.

E+H will present its audited 2019 financial figures on 12 May 2020, in Basel, Switzerland.

Deutsche Telekom and Endress+Hauser co-operate over 5G data

With its campus networks, Deutsche Telekom offers an infrastructure for the smart factory of tomorrow. Together with partners from industry, Europe’s largest telecommunications company wants to further expand its 5G ecosystem for industry. In the process automation sector, Deutsche Telekom is now co-operating with Endress+Hauser.

The aim of the co-operation is to develop joint offers in the field of measurement and automation technology for the process industry. This involves the integration of measuring instruments and accessories into the next generation of mobile communication networks, as well as the development of digital services based on them. Both companies have signed a corresponding memorandum of understanding and are now working on a co-ordinated timetable.

Measuring instruments with a mobile communication module

Endress+Hauser is one of the first manufacturers to equip its field devices with mobile communication modules and to connect existing installations to 5G networks – via newly developed HART gateways. This enables a large number of instruments to transmit a wealth of process and device data in parallel and in real time. These can, for example, be used in cloud applications for the predictive maintenance of process plants.

Campus networks open second signal path

“In addition to the actual measured values, our instruments record a wealth of information from the process and about the sensor,” said Matthias Altendorf, CEO of Endress+Hauser. “5G campus networks open up a second signal path that is independent of the main plant control system: this makes it possible to separately tap this potential. This will enable E+H to link value chains more closely across company boundaries and make industrial processes more efficient.”

Strong partners for smart production

“Building a complete 5G ecosystem for industry will accelerate the pace of digitalization in industry,” explains Claudia Nemat, member of the Deutsche Telekom Board of Management, Technology and Innovation. “We look forward to working with renowned and experienced partners.” In addition to the partnership with network supplier Ericsson, the telecommunications company now also cooperates with E&K Automation, a manufacturer of driverless transport systems, and Konica Minolta, which offers augmented reality glasses, among other products.

Yokogawa acquires RAP International

Yokogawa Electric Corporation has signed an agreement with UK-based RAP International (RAP) for Yokogawa to acquire the company and make RAP a wholly-owned subsidiary.

RAP specialises in providing digitised solutions that support risk assessment, management of the permit to work (PtW) process, and governance of control of work (CoW) for all plant maintenance activities.

Integrating RAP’s electronic risk assessment and PtW software solutions with Yokogawa’s real-time plant condition monitoring will improve safety assurance, reduce turnaround times, and support customers in providing enhanced protection for their people, assets, and the environment.

Manufacturing plants rely on scheduled and unscheduled maintenance activities to keep operating, ranging from daily rounds by field service personnel to the replacement of major pieces of equipment that can require shutdown of the entire plant for days or more. Control of work is the setting in place of a predetermined system for maintenance so that all necessary steps are carried out to prevent accidents and injury to people, damage to equipment, and unwarranted release of materials into the environment. However, in many plants these CoW systems are still paper-based or semi-automated through a combination of bespoke spreadsheets and document management systems, which can contribute to human error during operations.

Since 1994, RAP has been developing and implementing software solutions with integrated best practices that let customers digitise their CoW processes to make their maintenance activities safer, more accurate, and more efficient. RAPnet, its flagship product, is a comprehensive and easy to use electronic CoW system for automating maintenance processes: it is built around a large knowledge base incorporating decades of accumulated first-hand knowledge and experience. The digitised off-the-shelf solution includes standard modules for safety risk assessments, PtW management, management of change, interlocks and overrides, and isolation management. The system is complemented by consulting services as well as mobile and cloud-based functionality to fully deliver on the digital ambitions of customers. With support for 25 languages, it has already been implemented at over 150 locations in 30 countries in the oil, gas, chemical, utilities, and steel sectors.

Yokogawa provides industrial automation solutions to optimise productivity and efficiency whilst at the same time assuring plant safety and asset integrity. The company offers solutions that can monitor the health of plant equipment, and a digital platforms to support field maintenance. RAP solutions will further enhance the Yokogawa asset and safety assurance value proposition. Yokogawa will expand the availability of RAP consultancy services and road-tested systems through its global sales network, starting in Europe. The company will also carry out development work to integrate these into its existing technology portfolio and create a digital transformation platform that enables real-time monitoring of both plant assets and maintenance procedures.

Simon Rogers, head of the Yokogawa Advanced Solutions Division, commented: “Yokogawa believes that to create unique value for our customers it is important to integrate domain knowledge into the technology solutions we deliver. RAP systems are built around manufacturing industry best practices developed over the past 25 years, enabling customers to digitise and transform their maintenance safety processes, better protect their workforce, and improve operational efficiency. One of the strategies laid out in our Transformation 2020 mid-term business plan is to expand our OPEX business, so in line with that we look forward to making this outstanding addition to Yokogawa’s safety assurance portfolio available to our customers around the world as soon as possible.”

Nokia Open Innovation Challenge

Selected start-ups working on solutions for the future of industrial automation are eligible to collaborate with Nokia and Nokia Bell Labs experts can  receive up to USD175,000 in financial support to help grow their businesses.

Technology start-ups with innovative and disruptive solutions for the emerging industrial automation era are invited to compete in this year’s Nokia Open Innovation Challenge (NOIC). Winners of this global competition will be provided with up to USD175k in financial assistance, and will have the opportunity to collaborate with experts from Nokia and Nokia Bell Labs to help grow their businesses by unleashing new levels of productivity for the industrial and public sectors.

This year’s NOIC specifically seeks out start-ups with disruptive ideas in industrial automation categories such as multi-robot collaboration, VR/AR driven human augmentation for industrial and enterprise use cases, digital personal assistants in enterprises, human machine / machine human communication technologies, edge computing, and artificial intelligence and related technologies.

NOIC Competition

Marcus Weldon, President of Nokia Bell Labs and Corporate CTO of Nokia, commented: “We believe that in the coming fourth industrial revolution, a convergence of operations technology (OT) and information and communication technology (ICT) will be the catalyst for wide scale automation in all industries and infrastructure – and our physical world as a whole. This will usher in a new era of productivity for many sectors of the economy. As we roll out end-to-end 5G around the world to deliver high performance local and wide area connectivity services, we are excited to connect with innovative start-ups, to allow them to come and collaborate with our experts, and for us to be able to support them to help grow their businesses and shape the future of industrial automation.”

The NOIC competition is organized in partnership with NGP Capital, a global venture capital firm, backed by Nokia.  NGP Capital has 14 years of expertise in evaluating, investing, and accelerating promising growth-stage companies from all around the world.

Bo Ilsoe, a partner at NGP Capital, commented: “We have met thousands of founders, invested in over 90 companies, and helped several all the way into outcomes like an IPO or merger/acquisition. In this NOIC competition, we will pay attention to great founding teams, who can demonstrate their deep domain expertise and prove they have the abilities to scale their business globally.”

Last year’s winner

The annual NOIC event offers the opportunity for pioneering start-up companies to showcase best-in-class products and solutions within the Industrial Automation domain. This year marks the seventh year of this global competition; the winner of the last similar competition was Spark Microsystems, a Montreal-based business that manufactures low power wireless transceiver chipsets designed for the Internet of Things (IoT).

For Spark Microsystems, CEO Fares Mubarak added: “We were honoured to win the NOIC 2018 competition amongst a stellar group of innovative companies. This recognition provided credible validation of our innovation from a technology leader and pioneer in our field, and had a significant positive impact on our employees, partners, customers and investors. We have already identified multiple collaboration opportunities within Nokia, with the help of the NOIC team, which is very timely as we are within a year of full production. We strongly encourage all start-ups to apply to NOIC, and expose their innovation ideas on one of technology’s highest stages.”

How to apply

Start-up businesses that want to enter need to submit their entries by June 30, 2019.  The NOIC competition’s website contains the complete rules and guidelines. Finalists will be brought to a mentoring event this autumn at Nokia Bell Labs in Murray Hill (NJ), where they will meet with leading innovators in Nokia and have access to lab resources to help refine the pitch for their innovations.

The selected finalists will then present their proposals to an international jury at an event located at Nokia’s global headquarters in Espoo, Finland. The selection jury will be chaired by Marcus Weldon and include business and technology leaders from across Nokia, Nokia Bell Labs and NGP Capital.

New Process Gas Analyser for CEM

A new hybrid laser based process gas analyser now introduced by Emerson Automation Solutions has the potential to reduce the cost and complexity of CEM systems. It requires no consumables and needs minimal maintenance.

In the midst of increasing compliance demands for emissions monitoring and nitrogen oxide (NOx) measurement in industrial applications, companies now have the opportunity to move beyond costly consumables and complex gas sample treatment associated with ageing, legacy measurement systems. The new Rosemount CT4400 Continuous Gas Analyser from Emerson is the world’s first purpose-built Quantum Cascade Laser (QCL) and Tunable Diode Laser (TDL) analyser designed to help plants reduce ownership costs and report emissions accurately in environmental monitoring applications. It gives simple measurements of all standard gases of interest, such as nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), sulphur dioxide (SO₂), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), and oxygen (O₂).

Optimised for cold and dry applications running at ambient pressure, the Rosemount CT4400 analyser offers the benefits of QCL/TDL technology, including high sensitivity, accuracy, improved stability, and low-drift performance in a configuration that allows fast, easy integration into existing plant infrastructure.

“Our customers are looking for a better way to measure emissions without the on-going high costs or need for frequent calibration and complex sample preparation that requires NOx converters or ozone generators,” said Paul Miller, managing director for Rosemount Quantum Cascade laser analysers, a part of Emerson Automation Solutions. “The Rosemount CT4400 Continuous Gas Analyser gives them an answer to their exact requirements in a configuration they can just plug into their existing systems and be off and running – at a lower cost than previously possible. The reduced complexity of the system over what most companies are used to, results in higher reliability and analyser availability with a lot less personnel time required.”

Because the system can hold up to four laser modules, it can measure up to seven application-specific gas components simultaneously, providing great flexibility in continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS) applications. This simultaneous, multi-component analysis within a single analyser reduces the need for multiple analysers, and thus the cost.

At the heart of the Rosemount CT4400 is Emerson’s QCL technology, which detects and measures gas molecules in both the near- and mid-infrared wavelength range. The system employs a patented laser ‘chirp’ technique that enables the detection of individual gas species, free from the cross-interference effects of other gas components in the stream, making the measurement highly accurate and stable down to sub ppm concentrations. This high performance ensures operators meet increasingly demanding regulatory requirements, while real-time reporting provides critical insight into process performance.

Due to its purpose-built design, which produces enhanced performance at a lower cost, the Rosemount CT4400 Continuous Gas Analyser ensures reliable detection and monitoring of gases and allows operators to avoid costly regulatory fines or unexpected shutdowns.

More information on the Rosemount CT4400 Continuous Gas Analyser can be found at www.Emerson.com/RosemountCT4400.

Rosemount GWR complies with API 18.2 for Custody Transfer

High-performance version of Rosemount 3308 GWR Wireless Level Transmitter delivers enhanced accuracy that can be verified without opening the thief hatch, thereby increasing safety.

Emerson has introduced a high-performance version of its Rosemount 3308 Guided Wave Radar (GWR) Wireless Level Transmitter that complies with the API 18.2 standard guidance for crude oil custody transfer from small lease tanks. The Rosemount 3308 is therefore said to to be the first standalone wireless radar level device to achieve this. The transmitter delivers enhanced accuracy – and also offers performance verification without having to open a tank’s thief hatch, thereby increasing safety.

“The API 18.2 standard places strict accuracy demands on level measurement instrumentation because any uncertainty during custody transfer can have significant financial implications,” said Christoffer Widahl, product management lead with the Emerson measurement and analytical business. “Measurement precision is essential in these applications, and the enhanced performance of the Rosemount 3308 delivers the high accuracy required to reduce uncertainty and comply with API 18.2.”

This new model uses an upgraded microwave module, which makes the Rosemount 3308 more tolerant to difficult process conditions and therefore able to deliver a more sensitive and repeatable measurement with high accuracy. API 18.2 requires level transmitters to operate with 1/8” (3mm) resolution and 3/16” (4.7mm) measurement accuracy, which the Rosemount 3308 achieves when set up in the new high-performance mode. This then enables it to achieve the installed accuracy of 1/4” (6.3mm) required to comply with API 18.2. In standard mode, the accuracy of the device has been improved to 1/5” (5mm).

Accuracy can be easily verified in just a few minutes using the Rosemount VeriCase mobile verification tool. This straightforward procedure does not require a tank’s thief hatch to be opened or any product to be transferred. [Opening the thief hatch can cause high concentrations of hydrocarbon gases and vapours to be released, putting worker health at risk, so eliminating this requirement is an important safety improvement.]

In addition to providing the accuracy required for custody transfer applications, the Rosemount 3308 also delivers reliability in both continuous surface level measurement and interface monitoring applications. It satisfies many applications across refineries, oil fields, offshore platforms and chemical plants, thereby providing a cost-effective standardised solution across an entire facility. The Rosemount 3308 is a top-mounted device that is virtually unaffected by changing process conditions such as density, conductivity, temperature and pressure, and because it does not have moving parts, no re-calibration is required, and maintenance is minimised. A wide range of process connections, probe styles and accessories ensure application flexibility.

For applications involving interfaces, the high accuracy of the Rosemount 3308 helps to maintain product separation by issuing an early warning if an interface is identified where there should be only one liquid. By eliminating this uncertainty and optimising product quality, the unit can help to produce significant savings for end users.

Wireless technology significantly reduces installation and configuration time for level measurement applications and can typically reduce costs by at least 30 percent compared with a wired solution. The Rosemount 3308 can be installed and operating in less than an hour – reliably transmitting data via a wireless gateway to a control system or data historian. Status information and device diagnostics are easily accessible from the control room, reducing maintenance requirements and enhancing operator safety by eliminating unnecessary field trips.

E+H reports good growth in 2018

Endress+Hauser’s business developed very positively across all regions and industries in 2018. The Group, one of the world’s leading providers of process and laboratory instrumentation, automation solutions and services, reports new highs in net sales, income and employment.

According to preliminary figures, Endress+Hauser increased net sales by more than 9 percent to over 2.4 billion euros in 2018. Exchange rate effects prevented even better results. “In local currencies, we grew nearly 13 percent,” said Chief Financial Officer Dr Luc Schultheiss. The family-owned company created new jobs primarily in production, research and development and services. At the end of 2018, Endress+Hauser had 13,928 employees worldwide, 629 more than the year before.

“The solid development in sales shows that we have held our ground well in the market,” explained CEO Matthias Altendorf. “We supported our customers with more than 50 new products, solutions and services. We were able to break new ground through our digitalization strategy, as well as in the measurement and analysis of quality-relevant parameters”. The growth was spurred by innovations from across all fields of activity.

Good start to the new year

Endress+Hauser is expecting a somewhat weaker market dynamic for the current year. The Group is anticipating growth in the mid single-digit range, with earnings remaining at a healthy level. “The year has gotten off to a good start so far,” reported Luc Schultheiss. Assuming the business remains well on track, the Group expects to create several hundred new jobs around the world in 2019.

Endress+Hauser will present its 2018 audited financial figures on 14 May 2019 in Basel, Switzerland.