Ronald Deepak, Project Pursuit Leader, Emerson India.

What are the most significant innovations in industrial valve design over the past five years?

One of the significant areas of innovation in control valves has been in SMART Positioner Technology. Emerson has been at the forefront in this space with industry-leading technologies. The FIELDVUE DVC6200 is a powerful state-of-the-art SMART Positioner using linkage-less feedback mechanism. Using FIELDVUE Performance Diagnostics, valve operation can be monitored online to evaluate performance and reliability. This can eventually help process plants to predict failures upfront, prevent unplanned shutdowns, and perform predictive maintenance on control valves.

Which industries (e.g., oil & gas, water treatment, chemical processing) are driving the demand for advanced valve automation?

In the last few years, the refining and oil & gas industries have been driving the demand for advanced valve automation. However, with India's increasing footprint in the Petrochemicals and Chemical manufacturing, these industries will be the growth drivers of the future.

How are energy efficiency and sustainability influencing valve manufacturing and selection?

A lot of our customers are increasingly investing in technologies that enhance energy efficiency, while also reducing the carbon emissions. As a result, we see customer's control valve specifications calling out for compliance to fugitive emission standards, like ISO 15848-1.

What are the key benefits and challenges of integrating AI and machine learning into valve operations?

As control valves operate in a wide range of process conditions across various industries such as Oil & Gas, Refining, Petrochemicals, Speciality chemicals, etc. Each application in these industries becomes unique in terms of not only the operating conditions (pressure, temperature, flow, etc.) but also in terms of how frequently the set-points in these loops vary. Therefore, the kind of data that can be acquired from the valve for diagnosis could be very different. A lot of time, effort and money is spent in doing preventive maintenance. On the other hand, AI could bring in a lot of insight and intelligence as to which valves actually require  maintenance. This could save users a lot of time and effort in maintaining valves in their facility.

(The views expressed in interviews are personal, not necessarily of the organisations represented)

Ronald Deepak is Senior Manager, Global Project Pursuit at Fisher Valves & Instruments, under Emerson Process Management Chennai. He has over 18 years of experience in the field of industrial valves.