It is just over a year since the acquisition of Eurotherm® by Watlow® who design and manufacture industrial thermal systems. The acquisition was completed on October 31, 2022. The combined know how and offerings provide greater opportunities in regions and across industries, that might not have been so easy to reach for one or the other previously. The two companies’ technologies and vision make sense, both within the organization and to their customers.

Eurotherm are well established in Europe for their deep domain experience in life sciences, heat treatment and glass manufacturing and in France particularly for their power control solutions. It was clear from the start, that Watlow intended that Eurotherm remain a premier brand for temperature, power control and data acquisition, adding to their strength and global reach.

Advanced options for greater efficiency

• Predictive load management: Ensures the system does not draw too much power all at once.
• Controller diagnostics: Runs diagnostics and keeps a record of controller function.
• Communication and connection: Communicate and shares the log of diagnostics for audit purposes and alerts relevant parties if there is an issue.
• Soft start: (aka heater bake out). Gradually increases the power supplied to the heaters to purge moisture and avoid damage caused by premature full power

Application specific power control

POWERGLIDE™ is a unique embodiment of Watlow’s Adaptive Thermal Systems (ATS™) technology and combines temperature and power control into one ATS-enabled device ideal for complex processing applications.

Why do we talk in terms of “thermal loops” at all? Why not just talk about heaters, sensors, temperature, and power controllers themselves?

Understanding the thinking that goes into choosing the right components, and putting them together, is a far greater challenge. This is where Watlow’s deep bench of expertise comes in. Some issues that arise in a thermal loop are “systems problems” rather than a problem with any one component:

• The power needs and input to the system fluctuate over time, leading to inconsistent heating even when sensors are recording the correct temperature. Or they draw too much power and become a safety hazard.
• A particular application calls for rugged equipment, including a rugged control panel. The panel will be difficult to access and maintain, and so must be built to maximize uptime with minimal intervention.
• Data needs to be recorded and/or transferred because the application is part of a process in a highly regulated industry. There needs to be an adequate “audit trail,” even when everything is working as it should.

The data management component of thermal loop for highly regulated industries

Rapid world growth, globalization, advanced technologies for Industry 4.0 automation and data analysis trends, are emphasizing the need for high standards of data quality and integrity across multiple industries but this has always been the case where safety and traceability are critical factors. Good data practices (GxP) enrich the quality of data, enabling companies within highly regulated industries to make strategic decisions based on trustable data and analytical insights. In these industries, it is not enough to provide precise temperature control, there also needs to be an end-to-end data record. This record provides evidence of compliance of the procedure and that the required results were achieved for every batch, at every stage of the process.
 

Three highly regulated industry examples

Eurotherm have specialized knowledge and experience in these industries, delivering solutions that help businesses to reduce the time and cost of regulatory compliance, throughout their manufacturing processes and supply chains. Eurotherm solutions and services help customers to efficiently manage the quality, safety, and the authenticity of manufactured goods in multiple ways. Through machine and process automation efficiency, high integrity data management and by partnering with global regulatory bodies to help improve on best practice engineering approaches, such as the ISPE on GAMP® 5 (Good Automated Manufacturing Practice).

Non-compliance in these cases often means hefty fines and item recalls. Even if the equipment used is high performing and well controlled, manufacturers need to easily access and accurately measure, monitor, record, and protect the data collected within their processes. Thus, data management, (data recording, monitoring and secure storage of that data in tamper resistant files) is also very much a part of the thermal loop.

Helping customers achieve their goals often starts with an analysis of the system. This is where Watlow can apply its expertise and bring best practices to bear on a customer’s application. Once that value is demonstrated, the relationship as a trusted partner can hopefully grow.