December issue of IN-MFG Magazine Enablers to a Safer, More Productive World
Productivity, as reflected in product development, design and manufacturing, and end user cost, drives today's economics. In other words, what can you measure, how much does it cost to obtain the measurement and how practical it is to act on the outcome?
Integration, the move from simple sensing elements to SMART sensors, is the new key to sensor manufacturing. Customers are looking for sensor solutions with integrated custom electronics and ASIC packages so they don't need to be experts in sensor technologies. As systems become more autonomous, the middleware between the sensor and the actuator is eliminated. Stand-alone systems encompass the features of classical analyzers while maintaining the ease of installation and cost efficiency of simple sensing elements.
The next step in the product cycle is design and manufacturing. Here the name of the game is product cost. Better component reliability, small size, low power draw and standard communication protocol are just some features that lower the product cost. In the classical case, the sensor system required an analyzer shelter or instrument rack for the controller. However, integrated SMART sensors are installed right at the sample point and wired directly to the digital system. As a result, the user gets more measurement points at the same cost.
In addition, end user costs are the ultimate productivity driver. The use of sensors for both tighter process control and condition-based maintenance has enormous implications for asset utilization and both areas represent a major cost of doing business. As just discussed, increasing the information from a single installation point provides customers more knowledge of their process to enable tighter control over the process quality. Also, multi-measurand capability expands the sensor's diagnostic capacity for both the sensor system and the process, allowing for a maintenance cycle that minimizes cost and downtime.
Quality is the second area to address; there is a silent revolution underway in sensor quality. A big trend in the marketplace is a quantum shift in sensor accuracy, reliability, repeatability, and stability. One of the banes of the sensor industry is calibration, and thanks to improvements in design and quality, lifetime calibration is also a phrase customers have come to expect. Self-calibrating sensors, where field replaceability is no longer a concern, open up a whole new world of applications. Providing self-calibrating sensors that are highly accurate, highly reliable and highly stable is what customers need and have come to expect.
With the integration of new materials, stable and adaptive sensors provide customers with enhanced capability in harsh environments. With their integrated intelligence, sensors can now learn from past data, adapt their control laws, and communicate with adjacent sensors to auto-calibrate each other. Thanks to the quality of today's sensors, applications such as these have become a reality.
The last area driving the sensor industry is safety and security. Safety's impact on business and the sensor market is a direct result of an increased awareness of protecting our environment and our families. Our society now demands safer products and safer processes to manufacture these products. Trends in litigation and heightened public awareness, increased attention to safety, and monitoring systems to minimize a potential financial risk have also led to lower insurance premiums. Speed and availability of information, along with the focus on security, have driven consumers to be ever mindful of the environment around them. Another key driver leading to a focus on safety is the development of technology with many safety features that were once cost prohibitive or technically unattainable. Advancements in electronics and computing power in the "information age" have created a mindset in society of constant real-time reliance on added safety features and information in everything we purchase.
Finally, government mandates are the primary driver for the increased use of sensors in safety applications. As more regulations are established, compliance with these regulations forces the industry to develop sensors to detect new conditions. For the sensor industry, sensing systems must prevent an undesirable event, predict that an event will occur, and provide protection if an undesirable event does occur. The goal of these sensing systems is to protect our assets, our environment and our families. In all cases, sensors are the core enablers to a safer world.
Contact GE Infrastructure Sensing-Americas at 800-833-9438 or www.geinfrastructure.com
Kermit Hoffman joined GE in 1986 on the Technical Sales Program for the GE Motors business. He had a variety of market and application engineering roles and in 1989 was promoted to commercial pump marketing manager. In 1992, Mr. Hoffman moved to GE Supply and became the automation and controls product manager for GE Supply's Distribution Marketing Organization and in 1994 he became the branch manager for GE Supply's Distribution Sales organization.
Mr. Hoffman moved from that role to the role of business team leader for the HVAC Fan Business for the Motors & Controls business from 1996 to 1999. In 1999, he was promoted to general manager-sales for the Motors & Controls Business, where he served until he became president and CEO of GE Thermometrics and GE NovaSensor in August 2002.
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