83% of all instruments used in the chemical process industries (CPI) are being talked to using analog communications. By analog communications, we mean 4-20 milliAmp mainly. But we see 3-15 psi air and 0-5 volt control systems also. Why wouldn’t you use some of those 1’s and 0’s?
Actually, we have no idea just what percent of devices are being operated in the analog mode. 83% just seems like a good guess; although some at Brooks Instrument suggest it is much higher.
When you survey the field devices in your plant, you will find 5 major classes of instruments; flow, temperature, level, pressure, and analyzers (DO, pH, Cl2, etc…).
I’m asked this question pretty regularly. Rod guides are used to correct for a side effect of the way a variable area flow meter works. We know that a variable area flow meter’s measurement tube is narrowest at the bottom, and gradually increases in diameter as it reaches the top of the tube. When flow passes through the measurement tube, the float stops at an “equilibrium” point that shows the user the flow rate through the meter.
Flow-savvy readers out there know there’s a bit more to variable area meter operation than that, but I’ll leave those details for future posts. As the diameter of the measurement tube increases, there is a point when the diameter of the tube becomes too large in relation to the diameter of the float. At that point the float will no longer just move up and down, but can also move side to side. A rod guide holds the float in the center of the measurement tube to prevent side to side movement. As an added bonus, the rod guide introduces a small amount of friction against the float’s vertical movement. This extra friction stabilizes the float and makes the flow meter easier to read.
Do you find yourself trying to guess the actual flow rate because of a bouncing float? Can you hear the float banging around inside one (or several) of your flow meters? Specifying a variable area flow meter with a rod guide is an easy way to overcome these problems.
I was able to hook up with a great customer of ours during the Interphex trade show in New York this past April. David Mills, who is the senior director of MES and automation at Xcellerex, was nice enough to allow us to shove a camera in his face while he shared his thoughts about the relationship he has with Brooks.
Although he didn’t mention them on camera, big kudos goes out to Tom McLaughlin at PEMCO and the rest of the PEMCO team. PEMCO is our local sales expert and are the ones responsible for making sure Dave and Xcellerex continue to be a happy customer.
Xcellerex currently purchases the 5800S Series mass flow controller from us for their disposable bio-reactors and have been very pleased … as Dave states in the video. They are currently checking out our 4800 Series mass flow meter / mass flow controller right now for some other projects. My insider informant tells me that the testing is going very well. Maybe I can get Dave to get in front of the camera again next year to say some nice things about the 4800 (hint hint Dave).
As a vendor exhibiting at Intersolar you get to see the show from a little different perspective than the average show visitor. Through your interaction with numerous customers visiting your booth you start to get a sense of the mood of the attendees and the opportunities that exist in the solar industries.
My first observation is that I was glad Brooks Instrument participated in the Intersolar portion of the combined Semicon/Intersolar show. From a facilities perspective, the two venues for the shows almost reflected the state of the two industries. Intersolar is located in Moscone West, a new exhibit hall which features large windows that let in the sun and generates a positive atmosphere on the show floor. The solar industry is the future and these facilities reflect that optimism.
Did you ever look at a large expensive building covered in glass? That glass is usually coated with some exotic materials to reflect heat in either direction. Some glass manufacturers are even shipping self cleaning glass. If you look hard, some of those large glass panels have stripes on them. Builders and architects hate that; so do I.
The stripes are usually caused by variations in the thickness of the coating material causing light to reflect non-uniform angles. A glass coating company I recently visited was coating sample pieces and was struggling with that same problem. This glass company was vaporizing a super secret liquid precursor for coating glass. In this process the vapor traveled through a very hot slot (as wide as the glass) over hot moving glass where a surface reaction takes place causing it to bond with the glass.
Recently, 15 Brooks team members began a “kaizen” in our Pressure Gauge manufacturing cell. Kaizen, for those of you who may not know, translates into “good change” or “change for the better.” In practice, it refers to efforts of a multi-functional team working in a short-term, concentrated “blitz” fashion to realize continuous process improvement. Basically, you examine the current state of the cell operation, begin to build a vision of an improved “future state,” and then drive to get to the future state quickly (for example, improvements/results expected by the end of the week).
The main focus of the Kaizen is to identify and eliminate waste. Waste in manufacturing includes excess motion, waiting, overproduction etc. As you can imagine, lead times can be greatly improved by finding and eliminating waste during this process. Reducing lead times allows us to improve quality and delivery— two things where all customers should be happy to see improvements. Of course, we ultimately expect this process to help us grow sales and earnings for the product line.
Waqar Nasim has joined Brooks as our chief financial officer. As CFO, Waqar will be responsible for developing and leading the accounting, financial planning and analysis, tax, treasury, internal control and costing functions of the business.
Waqar is a financial executive with over 20 years of proven experience driving growth and profitability at mid-size companies. Prior to Brooks, he was at SkyCross Inc., where he was executive vice president and CFO.
Waqar is a great talent and will really help fuel our continued growth. We’re thrilled to have a guy like Waqar on board, with his expertise and track record as a successful CFO, he’ll be an instrumental player in driving rapid, profitable growth for Brooks Instrument.
83% of all instruments used in the chemical process industries (CPI) are being talked to using analog communications. By analog communications, we mean 4-20 milliAmp mainly. But we see 3-15 psi air and 0-5 volt control systems also. Why wouldn’t you use some of those 1’s and 0’s?
Did you ever look at a large expensive building covered in glass? That glass is usually coated with some exotic materials to reflect heat in either direction. Some glass manufacturers are even shipping 
Waqar is a financial executive with over 20 years of proven experience driving growth and profitability at mid-size companies. Prior to Brooks, he was at SkyCross Inc., where he was executive vice president and CFO.
