Pump purchasers conservatism should not limit the innovation and the imagination of equipment manufacturers. According to Axel Bokiba of Index Pulsafeeder this conservatism results from success. He points out that “When your mobile phone prompts you to upgrade your operating system, why is it that you almost always select “upgrade later?”. The reason is that it is working well and you don’t see the benefits of an upgrade. But there is lots of potential for improvement. One example is the pump total cost of ownership in offshore oil and gas. Today, many of the constraints that pump manufacturers seek to overcome relate to footprint (size and weight) because real estate on a platform or floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel topside is crowded, and total costs on these vessels can exceed $40,000 per ton. So innovations which reduce foot print and weight can substantially reduce total cost of ownership (TCO). Axel concludes “Pump manufacturers need to see beyond the expectations of conservative customers and find new ways to improve the efficiency of their equipment in the industrial processes: new materials, higher power density, metal 3-D printing, augmented reality assisted system conception, energy efficient micro-controlled drives, closed loop electronic control, diagnostic and automation, wireless communication, IIoT or digital transformation and many other enhancements that we have not even thought of yet.”

Click Here For Complete Article Text

• IDEX Corporation

• Article