Remote valve monitoring has been a boon for plants and factories in the industries of chemical processing, pulp, paper, and water treatment. For factories with thousands or more manual valves, retrofitted monitoring solutions can be costly and take a long time to deploy.
A cheaper alternative is available: factories have shown a 90% decrease in retrofitting investments, thanks to the use of industrial-grade wireless sensors as well as Industrial IoT technology.
This article is by Pertti Kujala , a global Industrial IoT specialist and director of Smart Factory of Haltian. It discusses retrofit valve monitoring and how factories can save significant costs.
What is remote valve monitoring?
The massive network of pipelines that run through the industrial sectors of chemical processing, pulp and paper, and water treatment is what makes these plants and factories so well-known. They are controlled by thousands upon thousands of valves. The systems were used for years without any major changes, and have been in operation successfully and efficiently since then.
Remote monitoring of manual valves becomes more important in process industries, as Industry 4.0 transforms factories around the world. Industrial enterprises must improve their production efficiency, optimize processing operations, reduce outages and increase safety in order to remain competitive.
Industrial automation and process control are rapidly growing thanks to the integration of SCADA and field instruments as well as smartphones, tablets and other mobile solutions.
Benefits to factories and plants
Remote valve monitoring consists of many components. It detects the position of the valve with a retrofit sensor device mounted on the hand-operated vale. There are two types of position sensors: linear position sensors and angular position sensor. The sensor device reports the location data to the factory’s central controller system in digital format.
The ideal remote monitoring solution allows for the monitoring of all factory valves from a central control system. This can be done remotely, and at thousands of points along the process pipes. Factory automation can be remotely monitored to provide many benefits.
- Massive cost savings
- Facilitate faster recovery from maintenance breaks
- Safety at the plant increased
- Reducing the chances of quality deviations and errors
- Offer valuable analytics and help prevent unplanned downtime.
Remote valve monitoring has been a key benefit in the Industry 4.0 transformation. The market for remote monitoring and controls is on a steady growth path with a 4.5% CAGR. Globally, it is projected to reach $27billion (EUR24.5billion) by 2023.
The challenges of traditional retrofitting solutions
Despite the rapid market growth and significant economic benefits, many factories and plants are hesitant to invest in remote valve monitor expansions. Retrofitting a monitoring device on thousands of different valve types – many of which are very old and often made by different vendors – can be costly and time-consuming.
Pertti Kujala has put together a list of the major challenges involved in retrofitting remote monitoring to existing valves.
Most of the current position sensors for valves on the market are only compatible with one type of valve. Different valve manufacturers use their own position sensors. This can increase the hardware cost of factories and make it more difficult to procure multiple manufacturers’ products.
For communication with factory’s SCADA and SAS systems, the traditional field sensors use several industrial communication protocols, such as Profibus, Foundation Fieldbus, DeviceNet or AS-Interface. This may require expensive software interface customization, particularly if multiple sensors are used in the system.
Modern industrial valve position sensors and detectors require physical cabling to transmit electricity and data. The cabling can become a major cost when there are many valves in a factory. This can lead to a delay of several months or even years.
Current position sensors are built on the same industrial standards as critical operational field hardware. However, this could be considered over-engineering in some industrial applications. The sensors are usually mounted on top or near the valves, so they are not exposed to extreme conditions. This design decision has led to increased sales prices for traditional position sensors. However, high-quality enterprise-grade products are equally suitable for most uses.
These issues slow down retrofit remote valve monitoring solutions deployments in global factories. It is important to ask: How can we reduce these costs and make retrofitting more efficient? The Internet of Things (IoT), technology sector, could offer a game-changing solution. Recent years have seen a quantum leap in the development of wireless technologies and IoT sensors.
Remote valve monitoring – A game-changing technology
The product development specialist Haltian and the Industrial IoT provider have created a smart, industrial-grade wireless Angle sensor to monitor remote valves. This solution combines the most advanced wireless technologies with ultra-durable materials. Factory retrofitting costs can be reduced by as much as 90% when compared to traditional options.
What does the angle sensor do?
The wireless sensor does not require any cabling. The retrofit angle sensor can attach to many types of manual rotary valves including butterfly and ball valves. The kit includes a mounting adapter kit that makes installation simple and quick. The clamp attaches the sensor device to a pipe. The rotating position detector disc attaches to the valve lever using a simple clip.
The Angle sensor device contains both magnetic and mechanical sensors that detect the position of the valve with a precision of 1 degree. It transmits any changes in position to the central control system of the plant or factory via wireless. The sensor is automatically connected to other sensors using Wirepas Mesh technology after being turned on.
The Angle sensor device’s Wirepas Mesh wireless protocol can optimize the radio frequency band and transmission power whenever necessary. The factory does not require any base stations or wireless network infrastructure. Instead, the Angle sensors act as access points for other sensors and create a fully-meshed network that transmits data packets hop-by-hop to the correct destination.
The Angle sensor is power-efficient and can run for many years on a single battery.
How can it help factories?
The wireless Angle sensor approach to industrial investment can help factories and plants save up to 50% on their OPEX and CAPEX over a long-term period. These are the top lifetime benefits:
- It is easy to install your valves – there is no need for cabling and the product is fully pre-configured. This reduces deployment time and operational costs when there are thousands of valves.
- It works with all types of rotary valves, including those made by any manufacturer. This reduces hardware cost and simplifies procurement
- Save money on software customization for industrial communication protocols by integrating the Angle sensor directly into the central control system via an application programming interface (API).
- Your control system will report any changes in the valve position data. This allows you to quickly adjust factory processes to achieve their best performance.
- You can reduce the risk of accidents and improve safety in the workplace by having up-to-date information on all valve positions.
- To avoid environmental damage, ensure that hazardous substances are not released from the system.
- The operation staff usually adjust manual valves. The operation staff performs the adjusting work using their tacit knowledge. Valve monitoring allows you to digitize and store this tacit information.
- You can measure and optimize the process by collecting end-to-end data from all valves.
In conclusion
Remote Valve Monitoring offers factories and plants significant benefits. This includes cost savings, improved safety, and continuous process optimization. Due to large retrofitting costs, digitalization of process control valves is slowing down.
Remote Valve Monitoring can be revolutionized by the new, industry-grade Angle sensor. Wireless Industrial IoT technology is a simple and robust alternative that requires a minimum investment of 90%.
