Emerson acquires Cascade Technologies

The acquisition is intended to expand Emerson’s gas analysis portfolio, adding laser-based measurement analysers and systems for enhanced industrial emissions monitoring, production efficiencies and regulatory compliance.

Emerson has announced that it has acquired Cascade Technologies Ltd, based in Stirling in Scotland, UK, a leading manufacturer of gas analysers and monitoring systems using their Quantum Cascade Laser (QCL) technology. This innovative technology measures multiple gases simultaneously, helping companies improve industrial emissions monitoring, production efficiencies and environmental compliance.

Emerson is expanding its analytical measurement capabilities by adding this innovative laser technology to its Rosemount Analytical gas analysis portfolio.  QCL technology provides a step change in gas analyser performance through its increased sensitivity, speed of response, and fingerprinting capability. These technology advances in the gas analysis market space provide a powerful solution for customers in various industries such as petrochemical, food and beverage, marine, automotive and pharmaceutical. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“The acquisition of Cascade Technologies is an exciting step as we further strengthen our gas analysis portfolio,” said Tom Moser, group vice president of Emerson Process Management’s measurement and analytical businesses. “Our customers depend upon Emerson to solve their toughest analytical measurement problems. We are now better positioned to serve that need.”

Dr. Iain Howieson, chief executive officer of Cascade Technologies, added: “Joining a global leader like Emerson represents an incredible opportunity for business growth. The Emerson global presence and market leadership will have an immediate impact on the adoption of cutting edge QCL gas analysers and monitoring systems.”

Yokogawa recovery is now completed

The recent Yokogawa User Conference in Berlin was reported in the INSIDER Newsletter July 2014 issue, showing a major emphasis on wireless systems, and the addition of new wireless sensors, for example for flammable gas alarm applications. The Berlin conference was the first significant Yokogawa European event since the Nice User Group meeting in November 2012, and so gave a good opportunity to talk to the management and assess how the business has reorganized and progressed over the few years. The overall impression is that Yokogawa is back to full health, so the major players need to move over.

The problems of the last five years.

The group has had a hard time over the last five years, following the world-wide recession and then their poor financial results in 2009. Then Japanese factors affected the Group badly, with the rise of the Japanese Yen reducing the competitive position – because of local production and group HQ costs – and the country then faced the impact and aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. Some of the Test and Measurement Division businesses were sold off, realizing some capital, and the company structure has been rearranged: jobs and resources were re-allocated. Wound around this, the wireless standards ‘war’ between ISA100 and WirelessHART, where Yokogawa for a long time took the brunt of the problems, and presumably had to help in the process of finalizing the ISA100 standard into a workable form: at least this is now completed, and consequently Yokogawa is the leader in the ISA100 field.

Recovery factors

Perhaps the major market factor that aided the Yokogawa recovery was the growth of the LNG liquefaction and shipping activity around the world, since is this an area where they have significant expertise and have a large market share compared to the other majors. Currently there are continuing LNG projects, the Japanese Yen has returned to the historic level of ¥100=$1, and over some years the production facilities have been diversified, reducing the concentration in Japan.

The flow company, Rota, has always been headquartered in Europe: now the special custom assemblies of complete analyzer houses are also built in Europe and the USA, plus the latest LNG project on the Yamal peninsula in Russia will be engineered from Europe. In a discussion at their Berlin conference, Yokogawa president and COO Nishijima san reminded me that they already had two established manufacturing joint venture companies in China, manufacturing transmitters and flowmeters, and the DCS systems plus other measuring instruments are built in Indonesia, with general pcboard manufacturing in Singapore. Nishijima san also commented on the need for local manufacture in the USA to provide the fast lead times required in that market, so we might see investment in a new production assembly venture there.

The next steps – with wireless

The Berlin conference showed that Yokogawa is building on their ISA100 position, and is seeking other add-on wireless sensor technologies to increase their ‘in-house’ capability. This might be by using their add-on wireless adaptor/interface, to existing mains powered sensors. It looks like a good relationship has developed with GE Bently Nevada, and corrosion and intrusion detection sensors might be next, with maybe fire detection sensors to go alongside the GasSecure flammable gas detectors on offshore platforms. Dräger, the specialists in oil and gas safety technology, were one of the major sponsoring partners of the Berlin conference, and also presented a talk discussing fire detection, using visual flame detection systems.

Nishijima was appointed President in February 2013: in April 2013 Herman van den Berg was appointed European President, and in December 2013 Simon Rogers was recruited as the head of the UK operation. Van den Berg, probably in common with Chet Mroz and others in the USA, has been burning up the air miles to Japan over the past 18 months, as a part of planning the recovery of the business. In fact there was an acquisition in March 2013 of Soteica Visual Mesa, marking an entry for Yokogawa into energy management IT services. Nishijima san sees further alliances and even acquisitions as an important route for Yokogawa to consider, to achieve the future growth his shareholders expect to see, and the current improvement in debt/equity ratio and normalization of the company share status makes this much more possible.

DCS and software developments

The major existing DCS developments have involved cyber-security improvements, probably in conjunction with McAfee after the February 2013 announcement, and ISAsecure certification for ProSafe RS. Additions to expect in this area are augmented reality added onto the displays, and compatibility with virtual servers. Yokogawa sees major business expansion potential in providing IT techniques and services for their IA customers, as a continuing service activity.

Examples quoted were CMMS in the cloud, which is already being offered as a service in Japan, and a software service called iMaintain, jointly developed and installed with Akzo Nobel in Germany: plus there is also their RigRider drilling procedure software, as reported from the Offshore Europe Expo in the newsletter last September. iMaintain enables client engineers to access device live data and history via a tablet on site, after reading the device ID locally using OCR. The iMaintain server accesses the DCS via an OPC link, to get current data, but can also call up device notes previously recorded, and also the instruction manual. A similar service offering is the Sotieca VisualMesa energy management system, which can suggest fuel and operational changes that will run plants such as refineries at minimal cost. One example of this is a recent project for the BP Lingen refinery in Germany: the system is in use in around 70 sites in refineries and petrochemical plants in the EU and North America.

The R+D activity on instrumentation also continues….

In the area of field instrumentation, continuing development will be seen following their strategy of having a two tier offering, featuring a top of the range unit backed up with a lower cost unit aimed at lower specification requirements. This has been seen with the EJX and EJA-E pressure transmitter, and the Admag AXF flowmeter, with the RXF unit typically for water industry applications. A new version of the TDLS combustion gas analyzer will also be launched soon. The activity level in this area of R+D is significant, with typically 400 to 500 new patents generated in a year.

Nick Denbow

The INSIDER Newsletter covering industrial automation and control is a Spitzer and Boyes publication, see http://www.iainsider.co.uk

F&G systems for Kittiwake platform

Systems integration specialist Hima-Sella has been awarded a contract from international oilfield services provider Petrofac for the provision of an upgraded fire and gas detection system for the Kittiwake oil and gas platform in the North Sea, which it operates as Duty Holder on behalf of Centrica Energy. The system will feature a HIMA HIMax and incorporate an addressable controller (rated to SIL2), and the overall project will also include the supply of new flame, smoke and gas detectors.

Kittiwake

Eddy Turnock, Hima-Sella’s Sales & Marketing Director, comments: “We’re delighted to have been awarded this prestigious contract and to be providing a fire and gas detection system that helps safeguard such an important platform.”

The HIMA HIMax is a Programmable Electronic System (PES) and, for the Kittiwake platform, it will be catering for an estimated 1,300 I/O, with scope for expansion. In addition, the HIMax ‘NON STOP’ feature will allow changes to be made whilst the system is online and without interrupting processes on the platform.

For the majority of the fire and gas detection system, signal conditioning will be performed directly on HIMax I/O modules. Also, existing platform wiring will be used in combination with HIMA Field Terminal Assembly units (to be located in the platform equipment room).

Hima-Sella engineers have already commenced developing the fire and gas detection system functionality using SILworX – the well-proven HIMA integrated configuration, programming and diagnostic environment – and system delivery, installation and commissioning are scheduled for later this year.

H2S detection at a viable cost

A recent fatal accident in a biogas plant in the southern UK highlights the need for cost effective hydrogen sulphide/sulfide monitoring systems on biogas and sewage sites, particularly where wet scrubbers are used to remove H2S from gas effluent streams.

Analytical Technology reports the development of a hydrogen sulphide monitor that enables the measurement of H2S in such difficult applications, while offering savings of up to 90% compared to the previous technologies available.

The Q45S monitor offers a continuous, accurate and reliable approach to on-line H2S monitoringin wet conditions, at an affordable cost. Installed for around GBP2000, the Q45S uses a sensor designed to operate in a condensing gas stream, without the water vapour blinding the sensor, which can typically happen with conventional sensors.

Dry media, chemical and bio-scrubbing odour control systems start from GBP30k, yet some H2S monitors can also cost GBP20k, which is just not viable. Sewage treatment plants often struggle to justify this expense, when it is almost as costly as the main installation.

Michael Strahand, the ATi European General Manager, said: “For those facilities with limited budgets, our methods of monitoring sulphides cost effectively overcome the issues associated with hydrogen sulphide measurement and odour control.

“ATi’s Q54S Wet Sensor for Scrubbers allows true control of the dosing systems and accurate monitoring of the H2S levels, offering a complete solution to combating odour problems.” The Q54S also provides set point alarm relays to enable remote alarm activation. The digital display and the analogue output provide H2S measurement levels scaled from 0-2ppm up to 0-200ppm.

Emerson buys Groveley Detection

Emerson Process Management, a business of Emerson, has acquired Groveley Detection Ltd., a leading innovator and developer of ultrasonic gas leak detection solutions for both offshore and onshore oil and gas installations. UK-based Groveley Detection was the first company to develop a piezo-electric based ultrasonic gas leak detector engineered for extreme industrial applications.

Groveley will join the company’s Rosemount Analytical business unit, expanding Emerson’s safety monitoring portfolio. With the completed acquisition, Emerson significantly strengthens its position in the global safety monitoring market by adding the Groveley ultrasonic gas leak detection technology to the complementary Net Safety fixed gas detection and flame detection product line. Groveley products are used in a broad range of energy exploration and processing applications, in addition to several industrial plant settings.

“The acquisition of Groveley expands our capabilities to offer the most comprehensive solution to our customers for their total safety monitoring requirements,” said Ken Biele, president of the Emerson Analytical Group. “The addition also leverages our companies’ synergies in sales, marketing, engineering and other key operational areas.”

Robert Bennet, Managing Director at Groveley, added: “Joining a global leader like Emerson Process Management represents an incredible opportunity. We expect our customer base to grow exponentially, as well as our ability to help solve customer problems by developing some of the most innovative safety products in the industry.”

Who is the next automation and control thought leader?

The following was the lead article in the INSIDER Newsletter for June 2013, written as a result of the recent news from ABB that their ceo Joe Hogan and their chief technology officer are both to leave the company.

The days of the technology based entrepreneur who starts a major automation business are long gone*. But seemingly the days of the company ceo that came from the same mould seem to be fading, as the larger businesses maybe move towards faster turnover of their ceo post, and introduces a stronger finance bias. Over the last five years or so there have been notable automation leaders as chief executives, who combined the financial knowledge with great presentation skills, and a willingness to explain their business insights and drivers. After all, that is what makes the best texts for the INSIDER. Who do we look to now for such leadership?

So who are the other leaders?

So where are we with the other automation thought leaders that have driven the industry forwards over the last five years – or longer – and have now moved on? Some of those discussed in this issue are detailed below.

For ABB, there was Joe Hogan from 2008, and he was supported by an equally impressive chief technology officer, or cto, in Peter Terwiesch, from 2005 to 2011, and now heads up ABB in Germany as the ceo there. ABB is based in Switzerland.

The Invensys Group

In Invensys there was Sudipta Bhattacharya, who joined Invensys Operations Management from SAP, coming in as ceo in 2007, and left in September 2012. In his time his Invensys Group boss had the twin responsibilities of Invensys Rail and IOM, so maybe did not take the centre stage as much as has happened in the last year, when Group ceo Wayne Edmunds has taken most of the limelight, and the IOM ceo of the last 18 months, Mike Caliel, has not had much opportunity to step forward. Edmunds is a pure financier in his approach, and as reported this month, he is looking to simplify the group presentations. Hopefully there will be an opportunity for Caliel to come forward therefore, and reclaim some of the ground he had taken as an automation leader in his first stint with Invensys, from 1993 to 2006, when he ended up as ceo of Invensys Process Systems.

The equivalent at IOM of a cto would seem to be Dr Peter Martin, who started there with Foxboro marketing in 1996 and now leads what is best described maybe as their overall automation business software consultancy operations. IOM call him vp of ‘Business Value Solutions’: he authored the 2011 capital market day presentations, and it will be interesting next month to report on the 2013 version.

Invensys is a UK Group, financed and led from London: but IOM and Mike Caliel are based in Houston.

Honeywell Process Solutions

Norm Gilsdorf, after four years with Honeywell UOP, took over first as vp and gm for HPS in Europe in 2008, and then had three years in charge of HPS worldwide. He moved on a year ago to become the president of HPS high growth regional business in Russia and the Middle East area, when Darius Adamczyk from another Honeywell business came in to run HPS.

HPS is a USA-centric business, which made it interesting that Gilsdorf remained based in the UK offices, and externally showed no problem as a result. Significantly one of the questions Adamczyk chose to answer on a recent webinar was one that enquired how him being based in the USA had changed the business! Hopefully Adamczyk will progress to more technologically challenging questions soon, and maybe bring some coherence to the whole diverse operation.

Within HPS, the cto, and leader of several adventurous technical presentations is Jason Urso in the USA, also supported ably by Jean-Marie Alliet, whose real title is the director of solutions consultants for the EMEA, based in Belgium. Notably Alliet has no problem branching out and covering hardware as well.

Who would be your thought leader?

The next batch of candidates to re-consider will be reviewed next month, but must include the recent changes in the leadership at E+H, Emerson Process Management and Yokogawa: but with nothing significant to report as yet on any changes at GE, Siemens, Metso and Rockwell Automation, who will be the thought leader to watch? Answers please, on a postcard, as they say!

There is one comment applicable to ABB, Invensys and Honeywell: their business is not just based on software (thank goodness) nor on DCS systems: there are many other aspects to an automation capability, mainly based on instrumentation technology, and these must be built into the structure – don’t forget the names that still exist, like Foxboro, Eurotherm, Eckardt for Invensys, Enraf, RMG for Honeywell: of course ABB have killed all their old business names off!

*Note: The days of the technology based entrepreneur who starts a good specialist business in the automation field are still with us however, there are examples all around like Dust Networks, Eric Byres and Tofino Security, and maybe even the original Processingtalk.com (now defunct). But usually these are snapped up by other larger companies when they become recognized, to develop them further or to kill them off. Recent such acquisitions might be seen as SpectraSensors, and the acquisition featured this month, RAE Systems.

Honeywell acquires RAE gas detectors

Honeywell has announced agreement to acquire RAE Systems, Inc, a privately held manufacturer of fixed and portable gas and radiation detection systems, and software – for $340 million. The purchase price translates to approximately thirteen times RAE Systems’ estimated 2013 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), or approximately six times on a synergy adjusted run-rate basis integrating with Honeywell’s gas portfolio. The agreement, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory review, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2013 and does not change Honeywell’s 2013 full-year guidance.

RAE Systems, with 2012 sales of approximately $107 million, offers a full line of personal, hand-held, transportable and fixed gas, radiation and photo-ionization sensing and detection devices for the government, oil and gas, industrial and emergency response sectors for use in a wide range of personal, plant safety and regulatory compliance applications. Their products are used in more than 120 countries by many of the world’s leading corporations and government agencies, as well as numerous city and state entities in the USA.

“RAE Systems is a pioneer in the gas detection industry with unrivalled technologies,” said Mark Levy, president and CEO of Honeywell Life Safety. “Their strong presence in hazardous material, first responder, and government complements our existing business very well, and their expertise in photo-ionization detection, wireless, and radiation detection represent terrific opportunities to expand our reach. RAE Systems’ geographic, manufacturing and distribution footprint, especially in high-growth countries like China, will help to make our already-strong gas detection portfolio an even greater global franchise in a very good industry. RAE Systems is a very compelling strategic fit for Honeywell.”

RAE Systems, founded in 1991 and based in San Jose, California, has approximately 750 employees and will be integrated into Honeywell Analytics, part of Honeywell Life Safety (HLS) within Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions (ACS).

This transaction builds on other successful acquisitions by Honeywell Life Safety including Zellweger Analytics in 2005, First Technology in 2006, the gas detection businesses of Sperian in 2010, and Fire Sentry in 2012. Honeywell Life Safety’s gas detection portfolio has technologies suited to address every type of gas detection requirement including industrial fire and gas systems, portable gas detection, flame and centralized gas monitoring systems and systems used in commercial building environments. Honeywell brings together nearly 200 collective years of expertise in the design, manufacture and technology of gas detection.

GasSecure ISA100 Wireless Gas Detectors Installed Offshore

First installation made to compare performance with static detectors

GasSecure has completed installation of the world’s first true wireless infrared gas detector GS01 on the Gullfaks C platform in the North Sea.  20 detectors were installed on the Statoil operated platform by a team from Statoil, ABB and GasSecure. The time for installation, integration and commissioning of the system was a fraction of what has been the norm for wired systems and shows one of the many advantages of implementing wireless detection.

The offshore tests on Gullfaks C prove that the GS01 gas detector from GasSecure has comparable performance to existing wired solutions on key areas such as response time and accuracy. The detectors are battery operated with an estimated battery lifetime of two years. They have been set up in a mesh network and communicate wirelessly using the ISA100 Wireless protocol with a ProfiSAFE layer to achieve communication according to the required safety standards (SIL 2).

Radio coverage was documented to be even better than anticipated and well inside acceptance criteria. A large part of the platform was covered by direct communication to one gateway.

The aim of the installation is to field prove the GasSecure detector and wireless technology and compare it with existing wired solutions.  This is done through side by side testing with wired detectors and installation in problem areas with harsh weather and where the operator has experienced special challenges.

Jens Erik Tømte, Senior Engineer Operation and Maintenance Automation – Safety Instrumented Systems, Statoil, commented: “Based on the experience we have from Gullfaks C after 2-3 weeks in test, we are pleased to see the promising results so far. Statoil has supported the development of the GS01 from GasSecure as we see the great benefits it offers Statoil. The savings in cost and schedule, combined with increased flexibility for installation, will greatly improve execution of our projects and modifications. This is all achieved without making any compromise on safety. Statoil’s requirements are the same to wireless equipment as for wired with respect to regularity, security and safety.”

Wireless sensors for hydrocarbon gas detection

Readers of the INSIDER Newsletter for November will know that in a report from the Invensys OpsManage11 user conference in Paris, the development of a wireless flammable gas detector by GasSecure of Oslo was mentioned. The background to this development was fascinating, but maybe more to instrumentation engineers than automation and control professionals, so it is described separately here.

Niels Aakvaag is a senior systems architect at GasSecure, www.gassecure.com, from Oslo, and their gas detector, the GS01, is a development that was undertaken with input from Statoil and ConocoPhillips, to create sensors that could be distributed around hazardous plant locations, on or off-shore, and work in a wireless mesh network. The specification, amongst other factors, called for the system to be designed to SIL2 standard and to operate from a recognised wireless standard, with the intrinsically safe sensor to have a 5 second response time to gas, with the sensors being battery powered for 2 years.

Possibly the project was started to take advantage of a recently developed MEMS-based IR/optical sensor, which gave the opportunity of approaching the cost of a conventional wired detector installation, where cable installation would typically be twice the actual sensor cost. The wireless sensor would obviously be far more convenient. The MEMS sensor uses a single optical beam, but analyses two wavelengths, one sensitive to hydrocarbons. This gives a path zero attenuation calibration at the same time as the active wavelength measurement, so giving good zero stability.

It was realized from the start that it would not be possible to run even the MEMS sensor continuously within the available 5mW power budget, so the sensor was designed as a two stage unit, with a continuous ultrasonic speed of sound monitor to detect coarse changes in gas composition, as a “pre-warning”. On detecting some sort of gas change, the optical sensor is switched on, and monitors just for hydrocarbons. Only then is a gas alarm signalled, typically for gas levels above 5000ppm. The expected use of the optical sensor is around 100 times per day.

The sensors are interrogated every 20 seconds, to conserve power, but can still achieve an overall 5 second response system time by delaying their “Safe” condition response for approx 17 seconds of the 20, before a response transmission. This is of course, unless a high gas level is detected within this waiting period, when the alarm response is triggered relatively immediately.

The wireless interface was designed by Nivis, and can be configured to use either WirelessHART or ISA100.11a. The initial units were set up to use ISA100, with a digital output from the gateway conforming to Profisafe over Profinet: the system integration used an ABB controller. With no experience of ISA100 in operation on a hazardous site, GasSecure and Statoil wanted to check the reliability of such a wireless system on site, so they did this by installing ten Yokogawa wireless temperature transmitters spread around the Statoil Kårstø gas processing plant in June 2011, with transmission distances of up to 100m. Of these, 8 worked well, with only a 1.09% packet error rate: the other two transmitters had been deliberately placed in obviously poor wireless locations, and gave more problems. But the efficacy of the ISA100 system was sufficiently proven.

The GS01 development continues, and in December 2011 the first completed units will be installed for trials in the Statoil Kårstø plant. The schedule after this is that in April 2012 a further test will be carried out on the Statoil Grane platform, offshore in the North Sea. The major first production project is for a new ConocoPhillips installation commencing in June 2012.

The GS01 is a fascinating development, and it will be interesting to see the performance proved offshore and in Scandinavian winter conditions! I am sure the developers will have an answer to ice and other hazards. One operator question from the audience was interesting: it is fine that new sensors introduced to the network join automatically and so on, but he had experienced problems of not knowing where each sensor was located, both with new sensors and when sensors were moved on the plant. While the wireless system cannot really help, his plant maintenance systems would seem to need to highlight this as a potential problem!