Insights of the Week
A webinar on IIoT for water and wastewater plants is scheduled for 10:00 AM on Thursday, April 3, 2017. You can participate as instructed in Weekly IIoT Webinars.
The potential revenues from IIoW (Wisdom) are greater than from IIoT. IIoW will make possible faster adoption of new and better products. With an IIoW advantage the suppliers of the better products will be big winners. McIlvaine is providing some paths toward better products with specific IIoW initiatives. One is the High Performance Valves and IIoT.
Collaboration among suppliers is the way that smaller companies can leverage IIoW in the international markets. Companies with complimentary products can share promotional expenses and develop an international sales network of their choosing and not rely on the local representative structure that now exists. They can also share the task of developing the IIoW for specific industries and applications.
For example a supplier of sugar centrifuges can collaborate with a pump and a valve manufacturer to fully investigate the opportunities in the sugar industry in Chile. The sugar mill key decision makers in Chile are to a large extent active in LinkedIn. They can be contacted by the collaborating companies who through webinars can demonstrate their IIoW. McIlvaine has initiatives in this area with the 4 Lane Knowledge Bridge to the End User and Detailed Forecasting of Markets, Prospects and Projects
IIoT is a $30 Billion Potential for Air Pollution Suppliers
The elimination of operating personnel at the plant, automation revenues and expansion of services will provide an opportunity for air pollution equipment and component suppliers which will exceed $30 billion per year by 2026. This is the prediction of the McIlvaine Company in Industrial IOT and Remote O&M and the subject of a free webinar Thursday, April 13 at 10:00 AM Weekly IIoT Webinars.
Fifty percent of the revenue potential is from increased purchases. The other fifty percent is from purchases that will be delivered through the IIoT route rather than through traditional routes. Filter bags, valves, fans, conveyors, continuous emissions monitoring systems and reagent delivery will be monitored and serviced through the IIoT ecosystem. In the new IIoT environment the fan and valve suppliers will be viewing health data on their products through the cloud. The APC system supplier has the opportunity to become the BOO (build, own, operate) supplier of these systems or he can abdicate and let a digital process management company such as Accenture, the plant supplier such as GE, the consulting company such as AECOM, or end user based enterprises take the lead.
The air pollution system of the future will be operated and maintenance scheduled through remote monitoring and control. There will be a BOO supplier who remotely monitors all components in the system. However, this cloud based system will also supply continuous data on each major component to the supplier of that component. When a problem or opportunity arises, there will be a tier based solution. For simple problems, the BOO operator will provide the answers or defer to a generalist and the supplier company.
For difficult or important problems and opportunities the BOO operator will bring in "subject matter specialists". McIlvaine believes that this domain expertise is not only the key to IIoT success but the biggest opportunity for APC system suppliers. In fact, McIlvaine argues that the Industrial Internet of Wisdom (IIoW) will generate more revenues for suppliers than IIoT.
McIlvaine has created a beta site to demonstrate this potential 4S01 Berkshire Hathaway Energy Supplier and Utility Connect. As part of this demonstration McIlvaine hosted nine hours of webinars on ways to more economically solve a potential $700 million NOx problem. Presentations by GE, Siemens, Doosan, and Emerson on optimization of boiler operations were accompanied by some presentations on novel approaches. The end result is a potential $200 million capital investment saving accompanied by operational savings of more than $15 million per year in energy, consumables, and repair.
At the present time, there are pilot plant demonstrations underway to prove the value of the concepts. If successful the various aspects can be incorporated by a BOO supplier and sold to utilities around the world. The conclusion would be that IIoT opens the door for faster adoption of newer and better technologies. Those suppliers who take full advantage will develop better products and generate higher sales and margins.
McIlvaine is identifying the opportunities for IIOT and Remote O&M relative to each APC technology including power plant FGD and NOx control, industrial scrubbing, absorption and adsorption, fabric filtration, electrostatic precipitation, thermal oxidation, and NOx control from industrial sources and engines.
Thermal and catalytic oxidation system operators can benefit from IIoT in many ways. With RTO systems there is a complex system challenge. Gas must be diverted periodically among three vessels. With flaring and standard thermal oxidation with recuperation there are continuing combustion variables. With catalytic oxidation there are catalyst maintenance issues and in some cases the need to control very toxic fumes.
Since the emissions from these systems are typically measured and data about them streamed to remote locations (government agencies) there is an IIoT base from which to expand.
Honeywell and Aereon are collaborating on IIoT solutions. Aereon works across the complete oil and gas supply chain to provide solutions for gas and vapor handling, combustion and recovery that allow its customers to meet stringent air quality and safety regulations. It specializes in custom engineered or standard options for flares, high efficiency combustors, thermal oxidizers, and vapor recovery units.
Aereon's automation services group provides turnkey automation solutions to the oil and gas industry. It uses leading HMI software like Wonderware InTouch, RSView and PLCs like Allen-Bradley, GE, Siemens and Modicon. Aereon supplies custom design control systems, including level I and level II automation, human machine interfaces (HMI) and reporting packages.
Fugitive emissions from the oil and gas industry can also be remotely monitored. Shell is remotely monitoring these emissions as reported in the McIlvaine IIoT Oil and Gas Webinar several weeks ago.
Megtec (B&W) is an example of a thermal oxidizer company who is already a process advisor to chemical manufacturers. The company supplies solvent recovery systems as well as a range of oxidation systems. A plant can be switched from one solvent to another during the day. Depending on the value of the solvent the vapors can either be combusted or recovered. Instead of just providing advice Megtec can be the remote partner who helps the plant with these daily decisions. Since it can leverage knowledge of solvent value across many plants, it can spend the time to provide continuous assessment.
Fabric filter suppliers have the opportunity to completely change the industry. Until 1980 most dust collector suppliers also provided the replacement bags. BHA revolutionized the industry with a computerized program and lots of phoning to become more knowledgeable than the suppliers about each installation. Today most bags are sold to the end user by specialized bag suppliers.
Nearly $3 billion is spent annually to replace bags. The system supplier can provide Sourcing as a Service (SaaS) and annual flat fee contracts for bag replacement. The system supplier will have the IIoW to minimize bag failures and reduce operating costs for the owner. The bag supplier income will be reduced because of discounts to the BOO, but all the continuous performance information will create an opportunity for the bag supplier to innovate and develop more cost-effective products. The bag supplier willing to invest in R&D will therefore be a winner.
IIoT and Remote O&M is already being implemented for SO2 and NOx control in power plants. System suppliers are offering IIoT services as are component and reagent suppliers. Yara has a NOx reagent monitoring and supply service, Howden offers fan operation and maintenance services. MHPS has a remote-control center in the Philippines where English speakers support emission control operations at gas turbine and other power plants throughout Asia. Another MHPS center is located in Orlando. Lhoist and Lafarge are capable of supplying worldwide support for lime and limestone to capture SO2.
Gas turbine emissions are now being remotely monitored at more than 50,000 sites around the world. Gas turbine rotating part health is remotely monitored at thousands of sites. There are a number of third party operators with remote control services, so this is an immediate opportunity for APC suppliers.
Many absorbers are used in processes and are critical to product quality. This is common in the chemical industry but opportunities abound in many industries. McIlvaine has unique knowledge about the ability of a two-stage scrubber used with coal combustion to provide rare earth feedstock.
Many electrostatic precipitators are already remotely monitored by the suppliers who track precipitator characteristics and can control them to optimize performance as coal characteristics change.
For more information on IIoT & Remote O&M click on: Industrial IOT and Remote O&M
For more information on the Air Pollution Control IIoT webinar click on: Weekly IIoT Webinars

Bob McIlvaine
President
847-784-0012 ext. 112
rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com
www.mcilvainecompany.com