Instrumentation Monthly Test | Measurement | Control
Powelectrics offer 25 years’ experience in connecting sensors. The company is delighted to have been selected as IoT telemetry partner for Ayton Gas Management. Ayton are specialists in industrial gas process engineering. They consult with clients and develop practical solutions to increase gas process efficiency to improve profitability …and with great success …they are currently saving in excess of £3.5 million per annum for their customers across the UK!!
Steve Pinch, Ayton MD, commented: “Powelectrics really listened to our brief and brought our ideas to life. Their engineers gave us everything we needed and we have every confidence in them going forward. The telemetry hardware is robust and reliable, the software gives us everything we asked for and the technical support has been excellent. We look forward to offering many new customers the benefits of this unique and proven solution.”
Many industrial gas consumers use MCP’s (Multiple Cylinder Packs) to supply gas for welding and other processes. The gas is so crucial to production that they typically have 2-3 spare packs on site, to ensure they have supplies in case of a delivery failure. In addition to charging for the gas, it is common for gas suppliers to charge rental for the MCP’s whilst they are on a customer’s site.
Alternatively, industrial gas users may have larger cryogenic storage vessels on site, taking up a lot of space and incurring rental cost. Such tanks require deliveries from large ‘tanker’ delivery vehicles, which may require factory yards to be cleared to gain access and take significant time to fill tanks, causing major disruption.
Some businesses prefer to use single gas storage cylinders, creating a Health & Safety hazard, both in terms of storage and physical handling as well as incurring significant handling costs.
Steve Pinch and his team put great effort into understanding customers’ gas processes and solving the issues they encounter. Steve identified a clear need for a more automated, less labour intensive, safer and more reliable method for storing and ordering industrial gases, using the latest Industry 4.0 technologies.
Steve invited Powelectrics to collaborate in the development of Ayton’s unique AGC Gas Management Solution. Ayton have designed an MCP switchover manifold. Powelectrics supply the sensors and have engineered the M2M remote monitoring solution.
Using this ground-breaking solution, MCP users only need two packs on site. Powelectrics award-winning Metron telemetry hardware sends data on the MCP to our MetronView cloud.
Together with the new switchover manifold technology, this creates am m2m, fully automatic stock ordering system, and a 24/7 fault monitoring system, capable of triggering automatic service calls.
Fields within Powelectrics software populate the purchase order with all the relevant customer, product and delivery details. Deliveries are scheduled to arrive well before a second pack would normally run out, meaning the end-user never runs out of gas.
Now that only two MCP’s are needed on site, customers don’t have to pay rental on additional MCPs which used to take up space and represented a safety hazard.
Gas suppliers also benefit. They receive good notice that a delivery is required, so they can plan deliveries efficiently. They also have access to the additional MCP’s, that are no longer being stored by customers as a back-up. Now these can be used to supply other customers, which means they gain the revenue from new gas sales as well as MCP rental.
Its an Industry 4.0 solution that works well for everyone in the supply chain. This solution is proven and is being rolled out to multiple sites in the UK. Ayton’s customers have been delighted with their savings, allowing both Ayton and Powelectrics to use their premises for reference visits.
If you would like to learn more about Ayton’s unique automated gas management system, please follow this link: https://www.aytongas.com/gas-management.html
Dave Oakes, Powelectrics MD is delighted with the results of this collaboration. “Our solution portfolio was designed to be adaptable to multiple end-use applications. Steve saw an opportunity. He came to use with a challenge and we rose to it! We have taken his vision and used our 25 years’ in connecting sensors to create a robust, affordable solution, which can be easily supported and developed to meet future needs.”
Powelectrics act as a connection between the world of sensors and the Industrial Internet of Things. The company offers simple, out-of-the-box telemetry or can work with customers to create an industry or application-specific solution.
Please get in touch if you have any queries or to discuss your application:
+44 1827 310 666
