The Monitor

Cycle chemistry management is the best way to help prevent, recognize and minimize potentially devastating water chemistry events. Smart alarms assist in this by monitoring cycle chemistry, identifying chemistry events in real time and allowing chemists to take proper actions to correct conditions - preventing system damage and protecting assets.

Topics: Power, Liquid & Slurry, Steam & Water

It’s not a matter of if, but when your plant will incorporate the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) into its everyday operations. The IIoT is making manufacturing smarter and faster than ever before by attaching networked sensors and intelligent devices to equipment to gather data, store it wirelessly, and then use analytics and machine learning to take actions that will optimize operations.

Topics: Power, Liquid & Slurry, Steam & Water

All food and beverages undergo some form of processing, and those processes need to follow a variety of local, national and international food safety regulations. Buying certified samplers from authorized sellers is critical to ensuring your plant has the right sampling equipment to meet these standards and keep our food supply safe.

Yet many plants purchase sampling equipment outside manufacturers’ authorized distribution channels – also known as the grey market. According to the Harvard Business Review, an estimated $7 billion to $10 billion worth of products are sold every year in the United States outside these authorized channels. Most consumers and businesses buy items on the grey market because prices are generally lower.

But investing in these unauthorized products doesn’t give you the same peace of mind as those with genuine ones, and it could bring you back to square one both financially and in terms of inspection violations.

Topics: Food & Beverage, Solids & Powder, Liquid & Slurry

When chemistry alarms go off in your steam power plant, how do you know if it’s just a nuisance alarm or a real chemical event?

The fact is, most of the time, you don’t. For many plant operators, too many alarms can be worse than none at all. And that confusion can cost you time and money during a real event.

Troubleshooting alarms with manual processes can take hours or even days to find the issue – costing up to $100,000 for every hour your operation is down, or millions if permanent damage occurs. Alarm-related problems cost U.S. industry more than $20 billion a year, driving many plants to reduce alarms and meet the International Society of Automation (ISA) standard of 1 alarm every 10 minutes.

Topics: Power, Liquid & Slurry, Steam & Water

Read Part I in this series to learn about the importance and impact of representative sampling.

Recent recalls of flour contaminated with salmonella and E. Coli have placed an increased focus on pathogen detection at milling operations.

Flour is considered a raw food product, since most flour products don’t undergo a heat treatment or kill process like ready-to-eat foods. Contaminated flour can make people sick if they eat under-cooked or uncooked flour-based foods, such as cookie dough or cake, muffin and bread mixes. 

It’s essential to implement a sampling process that provides a statistically significant sample for pathogen testing so you can quickly and accurately detect any contamination issues.

Whether you’re testing for pathogens or physical properties, samples should be statistically significant and represent the characteristics of the entire lot. The bottom line is that you want to divide an entire lot into small manageable units, then take a number of units regularly from the process. 

The samples should be taken from a place in the process where the material is well-mixed and won’t introduce bias (exclude different-sized particles or kill pathogens that might be present). The number of samples and sample mass collected should be related mathematically to the confidence level that is being targeted – for example, 95% confidence level requiring 60 samples of the lot.

Topics: Food & Beverage

The CDC estimates that each year in the United States, 48 million people get sick, 12,000 people are hospitalized, and 3,000 people die from food-borne diseases. And recent recalls of flour contaminated with Salmonella and Escherichia Coli (E. Coli) have placed an increase focus on pathogen detection at milling operations as flour is considered a raw food product. 

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls (HARPC) requires virtually every food manufacturer, processor, packer and storage facility – including millers – to identify hazards in their foods and processes, and implement controls to minimize these hazards.

Topics: Food & Beverage

In 2016, food recalls surged 22% to 764, with many tied to the dairy industry. Contaminated dairy products can be linked to consumer illness, with the potential to permanently damage a dairy’s brand. How can milk and milk ingredient processors turn the tide, while complying with new and expanding regulations? Automatic sampling can help ensure that milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream producers not only comply with the latest regulations, but also avoid harmful and expensive recalls that can lead to brand damage – or worse.

Topics: Food & Beverage

The power industry has changed drastically, and the ability to start up quickly and generate reliably and economically are no longer luxuries, but requirements. That puts more pressure than ever on your steam and water sampling system. Here’s what you need to know to minimize the adverse effects of cycling on chemistry results and streamline busy start up times. This information was originally presented by John Powalisz at the 37th Annual Electric Utility Chemistry Workshop, held June 6-8 in Champaign, Illinois.

Steam and water sampling is a key component of a successful chemistry program in cycling power plants. It helps protect both equipment and plant personnel, while ensuring maximum output, helping identify and predict failures, and helping start up the unit faster.

Topics: Power, Steam & Water

Expanding regulations. Foodborne illness outbreaks and product recalls. Intensifying demand for food and beverage safety. The challenges in food and beverage production are growing more intense every year. How can you keep up?

Topics: Food & Beverage

Cation resin can last a few days or several months, and it can be difficult to predict the lifespan even in ideal conditions. So how do you know if your resin is still functional at any given time? What does it take to prolong the life of resin – and how do you know when it’s time to refill or regenerate it? It all starts with understanding the cation resin lifespan and the many factors that affect it. Read on so you’ll never get caught with depleted resin again.

Topics: Power, Steam & Water