Software Bolsters Customer Satisfaction and Delivers Rapid ROI
June 1, 2005 T-Graphic credited Control Station’s LOOP-PRO software with improving control of reactor performance by 80% and with delivering an ROI three times faster than the industry standard. The benefits of LOOP-PRO have accrued to T-Graphic’s customers, elevating overall customer satisfaction and clearing the way for add-on sales of T-Graphic’s F-Series reactors.
T-Graphic manufactures and operates fluid chemical reactors for use in a variety of commercial applications including water treatment, nutrition enhancement, and waste treatment. Process control is critical in these environments due to the aggressive production requirements of T-Graphic’s customers and due to increasing government compliance requirements. T-Graphic selected Control Station’s LOOP-PRO DEVELOPER with OPC Inbox based on the software’s ability to equip engineering staff with real-time performance diagnostics and to provide tuning parameters that consistently improve control over the company’s business-critical processes. The LOOP-PRO software has helped T-Graphic to tighten production control across customer reactors operated both locally and remotely from the company’s Colorado headquarters. Additionally, the software has simplified management of reactor operations and compliance with government regulations.
LOOP-PRO has become essential to our staff’s ability to achieve optimal reactor performance and deliver the highest-quality products to our customers, stated T-Graphic’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Dr. Clyde Vollmers. The software enables staff to monitor critical process control systems in real-time and assure that they’re operating within an optimal range. That has saved our customers critical time in meeting their production goals.
T-Graphic calculated its return on investment at less than six months, achieving a rate of return that was three times faster than the technology industry standard. T-Graphic uses LOOP-PRO to monitor and tune multiple fluid reactors at both T-Graphic and remote customer facilities. Since implementing the software earlier this year, T-Graphic’s engineering staff has improved control significantly. In the case of the company’s F-Series Chemical Cells, reactor loop response time to process disturbances has been reduced by 80%, shortening product cycle times and delivering higher levels of non-defective production. The corresponding savings result in a lower cost of goods sold, providing T-Graphic with an important competitive advantage in the $250 million electro-chemical market.
According to Gary Werner, a controls engineer with T-Graphic, optimizing control loops is ten times faster with LOOP-PRO and drain on PLC memory is notably less. LOOP-PRO makes it easy for me to access data, evaluate process dynamics, and determine appropriate control adjustments. With the improvements to production quality, we’re achieving higher levels of both output and customer satisfaction.
Control Station’s LOOP-PRO Product Suite includes software solutions for the modeling, tuning, and simulation of PID control systems as well as solutions for the real-time collection and analysis of business-critical process data. The LOOP-PRO Product Suite was released in October 2004 and has been successfully implemented by companies across the process industries
About T-Graphic, LLC
T-Graphic is a manufacturer of novel fluid chemical reactors in the niche market for electro-chemical reactor solutions. T-Graphic reactors generate customer-specified environments with minimal chemical input, enabling end-users to manufacture products of high concentration with minimal process waste. The reduced requirements for process inputs offer a cost-effective solution for specialty chemical manufacturing.
