Do-it-yourself or get some help – the choice is yours

There are lots of different ways of implementing any type of project – from signing up for a turn-key solution, or at the extreme, buying just the equipment you can’t fabricate in-house and doing every thing else yourself.

Implementing automated process analysis

Implementing automated process analysis is an increasingly popular option and its becoming easier. However, for such a project to be successful, it’s important to engineer a robust process interface and properly integrate the analyzer within any existing control platform. Those who really want to capitalize on their investment also need to consider how best to use the data to automate control. While some companies know exactly how to do this, others may need a little more help – especially getting started.

This means that when you’re investing in a process analysis project it’s really important to set out and agree expectations with a supplier, to understand exactly what level of support you are buying and how it matches with what you need.

What works best for you

Here at Malvern, we work with customers in all sorts of different ways to implement real-time particle size analysis on any number of different processes. Some manufacturers just want to buy our sensor – and we are happy to accommodate. Others want us to take full responsibility for every aspect of the project to the point where its working productively within a complex automated control solution – and that’s fine too. As is anything in between.

What experience is beginning to show us though is that the best projects are those where the customer thinks carefully and realistically about what they can handle with existing resource and then uses us to plug the gaps. Playing to the strengths of both companies makes for a great result.

We’re currently developing a white paper on this topic entitled ‘Understanding the true cost of projects’, so let us know if there is information that you’d like to see included. Alternatively, if you’re currently considering an investment, this paper just might help you to work up the best possible case; we’ll keep you posted.