Facts At Your Fingertips: Digitalization of Heat Transfer Fluid Systems

The spread of COVID-19 opened the world’s eyes to the weakness of much of its infrastructure and drove home the important role operators and engineers play in keeping manufacturing plants running. These unsung heroes were challenged with the difficult logistics of meeting production schedules and maintenance requirements while mitigating the spread of the coronavirus. The pandemic also highlighted the need for digitally connected plants and operations. By digitally enhancing heat transfer fluid (HTF) systems, operation managers and engineers can be equipped with richer data to manage their production and maintenance more effectively and safely. In this way, they can monitor and forecast fluid testing issues related to acid number, moisture, viscosity and other parameters – all of which can impact production schedules and maintenance operations. Despite the challenges of COVID-19, strict quarantine practices and modified work schedules allowed plants to continue normal operation by having essential workers on-site. But plants would have benefited from technology platforms that enabled productivity from afar. Not only are digitally enabled tools more convenient to monitor and track systems, they also give plant managers the ability…