Bringing Valves Into The Digital Age

At this point, there is hardly a piece of equipment in a water treatment plant that remains offline. The industry has embraced technology as a way to make nearly every process easier and more efficient. But some plant workers resist this incoming technology, arguing that low-tech solutions have worked for so long, there are simply some aspects of their work that are better done by hand.

Singer Valve isn’t going to give up on those naysayers anytime soon, even if replacing pilots with digital control panels has caused some initial resistance.

 “People get confused, so I just ask them to think of [the control panel] as a pilot,” says Ryan Spooner, the Instrumentation and Automation Manager with Singer Valve. “Just put the panel on top of the valve and think of it as a pilot. All the same concepts that you know in your head about how that pressure pilot works, well, the panel is going to be the same.”

As much as the analogy may help some old school operators get behind the tech, it begs the question: Why do I need a valve control panel if it’s just like a pilot?

Spooner points out that Singer Valve’s technologies – like the SCPTP control panel - can allow operators to seamlessly flip between flow control, upstream/downstream pressure management, level control, and position control.

To hear more of the benefits of valve automation and electronics, tune into Spooner’s full Water Online Radio interview during ACE.15 below.