Pumps & Systems, February 2008
Challenges for the Pump Market
A recent marketing survey found that 84.0 percent of satisfied customers would "jump ship" for a better deal if an opportunity arose. With markets becoming increasingly globalized, customer retention has become a critical part of business strategy. Companies need to ask themselves: What reason can I give this customer to stay, even if my competitor offers a cheaper price? The keys lie in keeping customers loyal to brands and products and ensuring a consistently outstanding customer experience.
What do pump industry manufacturers need to be aware of to keep their customers satisfied in the coming decades? Figure 1 below represents three themes that are going to impact the pumps market for the next 20 years.
Consolidation
The ongoing, global consolidation trend is likely to continue among major manufacturers in order to provide solution-based services along with products. This trend will also enable manufacturers to widen their product portfolio, thereby helping to reach a larger customer base. In turn, the pumps market will need to provide training programs and learn new cultures.
Global Climate Change
Given the frequent conversations on global warming, greenhouse gases and emission controls, the pumps market will need to respond with energy efficient pumps and zero emission features.
Demographic Changes
Across the globe we are seeing an aging population, a growing population in Asia Pacific and changes in the age ranges of countries. For instance, Japan's labor is expected to contract by 7 percent between 2007 and 2015 due to an aging population. On the other hand, India's teenage population (under 18) is expected to equal the population of the United States by 2050. This is going to impact the consumption and expenditure patterns for utilities as well as strain the existing infrastructure with the growing demand.
Digital Pumping Technologies
To satisfy all the above conditions, digital pumping technologies-asset management and condition monitoring technologies, advance project management practices and life-cycle costs evaluation-are becoming central in pumps procurement and deployment strategies globally. Among the technologies available include:
Asset Management (AM)
Asset management software and services include CMMS, PAM and EAM. With respect to end user applications, the oil and gas and power industries are expected to remain the major source of revenues for asset management markets.
Expected Benefits
- Connectivity to condition-based monitoring systems
- Web architected solutions that allow for decreased cost of implementation and ease of user access
- Geographic developments easily monitored to capitalize on emerging opportunities
- Industry-specific regulatory compliance and support
Conditioning Monitoring (CM)
CM uses advanced technologies to determine equipment condition and predict potential failure. CM is most frequently used as a predictive maintenance or condition-based maintenance technique. Manufacturers are expected to invest enormous effort to offer pump-monitoring systems to end users to ensure overall efficiency. Pump-monitoring technology can follow pump trending, perform maintenance planning, use different types of sensors for monitoring and send data locally or to the pump manufacturer service center. Data transfer over the Internet is possible and pumps all around the world can be simultaneously monitored from one location.
The areas that can be monitored include vibration, suction pressure, discharge pressure, flow rate, lube oil temperature/pressure, motor amps, casing temperature, balance drum leak-off, seal drain, loss of prime, empty tank and clogged check valves.
Key Market Drivers
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Integration of CM with Plant Asset Management/CMMS
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Wireless technology to propel the future of condition monitoring
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Trend toward online monitoring systems
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Strong potential in the services and consulting market
Life Cycle Cost Analysis and Smart Pumps
Life Cycle Cost (LCC) analysis helps the user choose the most cost-effective solution to decrease expenses over the long lifetime of pumps (typically 15 to 20 years). It is expected to reduce the costs of energy, operation and maintenance as well as improve reliability, quality and efficiency over the pump and pumping system's life span (see Figure 2 below).
LCC analysis is composed of the following costs: purchase, installation, operation, maintenance, support and disposal of the equipment. With over 50 percent, the energy and maintenance costs are the largest cost components over the life cycle of a pump.
The pumps industry has largely been slow to incorporate computer technology to operate, control and protect pumps and systems and reduce LCCs. Manufacturers have only recently begun to develop smart pumps, which integrate a pump, a variable-speed drive, a diagnostic system and a control device. The system eliminates the need for a control valve in the pump circuit and by itself acts as a controlling device. (The pump is made to run only at the required system capacity rather than at full capacity with the flow regulated using a control valve.) These systems contribute to saving energy, prolonging the life of the equipment, minimizing manpower and lowering ownership costs.
Key Market Drivers
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Reduce cost of ownership through the life cycle benefits
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Detect and prevent process upsets that can lead to premature pump failure (dry-run, etc.)
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Improve process control
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Concerted education efforts on the part of manufacturers and influencing organizations
Adopting Digital Pumping
Digital pumping can be used for new facilities as well as for optimizing existing facilities, and a key activity that can help accelerate its adoption is the creation of knowledge communities. This refers to the educational roles played by various industry participants (see Figure 3 below).
The rapid evolution of our global hyper-connected markets drives manufacturers to develop knowledge capabilities. In other words, an increasing proportion of business value resides in trusting knowledge-based relationships, which allow manufacturers to create value with clients, suppliers, alliance partners and individual workers. Relationships are the future of society and business, and rich knowledge exchange will hold the key for gaining competitive advantage. The mantra for manufacturers today is to build long-term renewable relationships internally and externally.
One of the key challenges for manufacturers today is to focus on fostering collaboration between individuals, teams, divisions and other organizations. This requires a knowledge sharing infrastructure that allows people to connect to people as well as to valuable information. The next decade will increasingly see manufacturers shifting their focus from traditional business processes to processes that will enable smooth and efficient workflow. Having made this shift, companies can reconfigure how work is done, and even allow clients and suppliers to participate in their processes, creating powerful lock-in.