How to Manage Your Obsolete Process Equipment
How can Cross help with your aging equipment?
As your process equipment begins to age it becomes harder to operate your facility. Finding technicians and engineers who are familiar with the equipment becomes difficult. Older equipment doesn’t work as efficiently or reliably as it once did and finding replacement parts is a real challenge. The experts at Cross Process Solutions are here to help support you.
Training
Because newly trained engineers and technicians often aren’t familiar with older equipment or software, it can be hard to find talent who knows how to work on or operate older systems. Our team has an abundance of experience in both cutting-edge and legacy systems. Let us help with the headache of training new team members on the technical aspects of your process control and measurement equipment.
Identification and Prioritization of Obsolete Equipment
With hundreds of gages, valves, vents, and control systems in your facility, it can be hard to keep up with what is obsolete. Our team can come onsite and provide an audit of your equipment to let you know what is no longer supported. Then we work with you to determine which pieces are critical to your process and create a priority list to plan for replacement over time.
For example, we offer “TOP” or Tank Optimization Surveys. To complete these surveys, a Cross expert will come onsite to inspect all the tank accessories in your facility and assess their operation and condition. After the survey, your team is presented with a detailed report outlining what was found and what steps we recommend taking to improve the safety and efficiency of your operation.
Once your valve is specified and ready to be installed, don’t forget to include the following components along with the control valve. First, you need a properly sized strainer somewhere upstream of the control valve. Dirt and debris are control valve killers. Second, if you are installing a pneumatic control valve, you must put a filter regulator on the main air supply line…our team recommends at minimum, a 25 micron filter but a 5 micron is preferred. This serves dual purposes. The filter regulator will protect the positioner from fine particles of dirt that can clog the small air ports inside of the positioner. It also protects the positioner and actuator from over pressurization. Many control valve actuators use lower pressure air supply than standard plant air.
Continue reading the remainder of the article, then reach out to a Cross Process Solutions representative to discuss you equipment needs.
Legacy Control System Migration
Legacy Control System Migration is, or at some point will be, a very important topic for every manufacturing facility. According to recent statistics, $65 billion worth of installed legacy process control systems have reached the end of their reasonable life cycle. Many companies do not have the financial resources to perform a complete replacement of equipment or the technical resources to develop a strategy for migration and replacement to more current technologies.
Cost-Effective Migration Strategy
Cross Company has proven experience in migrating legacy hardware and software systems. Our proven process begins with a risk analysis and site review and discussion with our customer to discuss the end goals and critical aspects of each application. We have the knowledge and expertise to extract the critical information from the existing configurations, graphics, and documentation and even your experienced operations and engineering personnel, a critical area of knowledge often overlooked.
Based on this assessment, we guide our customers through specific recommendations on a migration path best suited for your requirements to minimize cost, risk, and associated downtime.
From a simple HMI upgrade to a GMP validated system and even development of a five to ten-year migration plan for an entire facility, Cross Company can provide complete planning, engineering and commissioning to guide you through this process to successfully achieve your migration and business objectives.
Continue reading about migration strategy, then reach out to our engineering team to discuss your pathway towards an upgraded control system.
Cross is an Authorized Groth Assembler
We are pleased to advise you that Cross is now an Authorized Groth Assembler. The trusted brand that you’ve known for years has certified Cross as an official assembler of relief valves. As a GARD center, remember Cross can repair your relief valve. However, if it’s beyond economical repair, we can assemble to order a replacement valve in a fraction of the lead time from other sources.
When you need your relief valves assembled to order, we have the expertise to help. Our trained and experienced technicians are on the job to ensure you’re getting the best performance, highest quality, and most production out of all of your valves, vents, and regulators. We’re excited to add to this our factory-quality valves assembled in our Knoxville facility. Our valves usually ship within 48 hours!
Contact one of our experts to discuss your requirements for a new piece of equipment or arrange a repair of your existing parts. We look forward to hearing from you!
