Food Manufacturing IIoT and Remote O&M Webinar slated for August 2nd
Food manufacturers will double their expenditures for IIoT and Remote O&M over 
the 2017-2022 period when purchases will reach $22 billion. The webinar at 10 AM 
central time on Wednesday, August 2nd will examine specific case histories in 
various types of food and beverage manufacturing plants throughout the world. 
ConAgra will be evaluated in detail to cover recent IIoT upgrades. The scope of 
activities includes operation of wastewater treatment plants for the small 
cities in which it generates food waste.
Dairy and food & beverage are the largest industry sub-segments followed by soft 
drinks, vegetable oil, sugar/beet, beer, and wine. The next segments in the 
rankings are corn/grain, distilled spirits, confections, and meat. 
The analysis of projected IIoT and remote O&M expenditures has been on a bottoms 
up basis. This includes the components and processes with IIoT and monitoring 
potential in each major plant. McIlvaine has separate forecasts for valves, 
pumps, filters, software, instrumentation, treatment chemicals, compressors, 
fans, and heat exchangers.
IIoT and Remote O&M investment will expand across all sectors from raw 
vegetables through packaging and shipping to retail customers 
GEA has just acquired a company which tracks the grain storage and transport. It 
already provides automation for food processing systems to address the FDA PAT 
initiative, so its monitoring scope extends from start to finish.
The ConAgra Omaha plant was a greenfield installation using Rockwell Automation 
software with Concept Systems as the integrator. E&H instrumentation and Emerson 
Fisher valves, positioners and controls were incorporated. The automation 
benefits are chronicled.
There is a benefit for further automation and control of wastewater as well. 
ConAgra incorporates municipal wastewater with its food waste in the small towns 
where its plants are located. Evoqua has just purchased ADI who provides 
biological treatment of the food waste at several ConAgra plants. Evoqua is in a 
good position to marry its wastewater with its chemical dosing, filtration and 
other products to further optimize IIoT.
The pump suppliers can take a bigger role in furthering IIoW (Wisdom). IIoT will 
only advance at a rate controlled by the assimilation and use of the knowledge. 
For pump suppliers this means the opportunity to analyze and optimize processes. 
Seepex replaced a pneumatic conveying system to transport draff (husk residue) 
at an Irish distillery with a progressive cavity pump which increased production 
and lowered maintenance.
The webinar will briefly display 100 slides with information on food processes, 
markets and products. The purpose will be to provide an overview and demonstrate 
the depth of the research. Several suppliers will also provide presentations of 
five minutes or less in length. We can still accommodate a few additional 
presentations. 
To register for the webinar click on Weekly IIoT Webinars
For more information on presenting contact Bob McIlvaine at 
rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com 847-784-0012, ext 112.
Focus on the Large Companies for Most of Your Sales
Five hundred and fifty companies buy more than half the combust, flow and treat 
products and services. McIlvaine is providing sales forecasts of their purchases 
of pumps, valves filtration and separation equipment and consumables, air 
pollution control equipment and consumables and instrumentation. These 
individual plant forecasts are being added to the market reports listed at 
http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/index.php/markets 
Forecasts for other combust, flow and treat equipment for these companies can be 
provided; McIlvaine has extensive data on fans, compressors, heat exchangers, 
burners, piping and materials such as stainless steel and FRP.
The market reports will provide the forecasted purchases for each of the 
companies. A market program for these companies is also available. The McIlvaine 
databases are now also focusing on these 550 companies. The groupings of 
purchasers are: 
• water/wastewater, 
• oil, gas, refining, petrochemical, 
• Power 
• Semiconductor, pharmaceutical 
• Chemical, pulp/paper, mining, steel, food processing
http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/index.php/databases 
In one case McIlvaine has a whole service built around a single purchaser 4S01 
Berkshire Hathaway Energy Supplier and Utility Connect
The large purchasers will be increasingly important due to mergers, but also the 
impact of IIoT and Remote O&M. Conglomerates will move to centralized decision 
making and expand their influence beyond their own plants. Uniper has an 
agreement with India Power to pursue O&M contracts. Luminant supplies remote 
monitoring of rotating equipment for industrial facilities as well as its own 
power plants. BASF operates an industrial wastewater treatment plant, Chicago 
Metropolitan Sanitary District is treating food waste from local companies and 
converting it to biogas. A large Chinese cement producer dewaters and combusts 
sewage sludge generated by treatment plants. ConAgra is a municipal wastewater 
treatment plant operator in small towns where it has its plants.
Valve Sales Concentrated among 2500 Purchasers
Industrial valve sales exceeded $58 billion last year. Five hundred and 
fifty-five companies bought 40 percent of the total. 1500 companies accounted 
for 60 percent of the total. 2500 companies purchased 70 percent of all valves. 
Sinopec which is the largest oil and gas producer and is also a large refiner 
and EPC purchased nearly 2 percent of the total. The top five oil and gas 
companies purchased nearly 5 percent of all valves. The top five power companies 
purchased 1.5 percent of all valves. The top 10 chemical companies purchased 
over 1 percent of all valves. Therefore, the top 20 purchasers accounted for 7.5 
percent of the total. This is the latest tally in the McIlvaine industrial valve 
market report N028 Industrial Valves: World Market.
The 555 companies are in 13 different industries. There are only 15 electronics 
companies included in the group. Valve sales are much lower to this group than 
most of the others. The water and wastewater valve sales are substantial. 
However, there are relatively few large purchasers. For example the Metropolitan 
Sanitary District of Chicago spent $10 million for valves, but this is only 0.25 
percent of the total valves purchased for the wastewater utility segment and is 
less than .02 percent of the valve total. None of the publicly owned utilities 
has even a 1 percent share. On the other hand, a few private companies have 
larger shares. Suez operates 50 percent of water and wastewater plants in Chile, 
is active in China and other Asian countries, has a significant share in France 
and is active elsewhere in Europe. It accounts for more than 0.5 percent of the 
total when both water and wastewater utility purchases are included.
The top 200 companies purchased 39 percent of the world's chemical valves in 
2016.
Rank Percent of
Total 
Valve Purchases 
Cumulative
Total
1-10 10 10
11-20 4.5 14.5
21-30 4.0 18.5
31-40 3.0 21.5
41-50 2.0 23.5
51-100 7.1 30.6
101-200 8.6 39.2
Coal-fired plants represent the largest purchasing segment in power. Coal 
purchases are more than twice as large as those for nuclear or gas turbine 
plants. The top five operators purchased over 36 percent of the total valves 
purchased by coal-fired power plants. The top 15 companies purchased 55 percent 
of the total. 
The rankings keep changing for multiple reasons. Mergers are one factor. Also 
some of the industries such as oil and gas are volatile whereas others such as 
pharmaceutical are steady. The advent of IIoT will lead to more mergers due to 
the economics of scale with automation and with remote monitoring and control by 
third parties who take over valve maintenance and replacement. The details are 
found in N031 Industrial IOT and Remote O&M.
Bob McIlvaine
President
847-784-0012 ext. 112
www.mcilvainecompany.com