Endress+Hauser Presents Complete Instrumentation And Optimization Solutions

Nick Camin of Endress+Hauser sits down with Water Online Radio to discuss how process instrumentation can save money, simplify processes, and make life easier for plant operators.

Todd Schnick: We’re coming to you live from Dallas, Texas. This is day one of AWWA ACE 2012 on Water Online Radio. I’m your host Todd Schnick, joined by my colleague, Todd Youngblood. Todd, each guest gets progressively more tricky and troublesome.

Todd Youngblood: I know. And what worries me is this is just day one.

Todd Schnick: Yes. 

Todd Youngblood: We have all day Monday, all day Tuesday, and we’ve got this guy here on Sunday.

Todd Schnick: Maybe we’ll recover. But hopefully we’ll get into it. Let me welcome our next guest. His name is Nick Camin, who is an Environmental Industry Manger with Endress+Hauser. Welcome to the show, Nick.

Nick: Oh yeah. Thank you very much Todd and Todd of Dreamland Radio. I certainly appreciate the invitation.

Todd Schnick: Okay, he’s going to be one of these guys.

Todd Youngblood: Yeah. Well, we got a plug out of it, so you got to like that.

Todd Schnick: Nick, before we get into it, take a second, tell us a little bit you and your background.

Nick: Personal background, business background?

Todd Schnick: Well, we saw your FBI file. Tell us about that one.

Nick: Ah, that’s good. Okay. I am the Environmental Industry Manager for Endress+Hauser. So I’ve resided there at Indianapolis headquarters for a number of most glorious years, 14 of them, where I was a Project Manager, Marketing Manager, various other odd jobs. Custodial, whatever they’d need, yeah.

Todd Schnick: Custodial, yes, I understand that. Todd used to be the Custodial Director at Dreamland. Tell us more about Endress+Hauser.

Nick: We are a single source supplier for process instrumentation for the environmental business, so we do a lot of water business, a lot of wastewater business. Any type of sensor you need, measuring water quality or helping optimize processes, that’s us.

Todd Youngblood: Nick, you said instrumentation, but it’s more than that, isn’t it?

Nick: Oh yeah. We actually do complete solutions, so field network engineering, we help out with that. We do customer training, we do remote calibrations, pretty much anything that revolves around servicing or providing instrumentation is within our realm.

Todd Schnick: Nick, tell us about some of the new products we can look forward to next year.

Nick: We have several coming out. The new magnetic flow meters will be here, in fact they're on show here at ACE 2012 in Dallas, Promag 400 and 800. We’re now a supplier of battery powered magnetic flow meters for water distribution systems. We also have a biogas meter, which is very unique, called the B200, which deals with digester gas.

So for any kind of energy savings you're looking with digester gas, and lower cost thermal mass flow meters. I mean, we’re constantly innovating, releasing new technologies. We spend a fortune on R&D every year, just to stay ahead of the game.

Todd Schnick: Now Nick, you're talking about new products, new engineering, new technologies. The water industry is kind of notorious for being a little, shall we say, slow in adopting new technologies. Talk a little bit about that. How do you take those things out and articulate the value that you can bring to your customers with a new technology?

Nick: Well, it’s all about money, right? Everybody wants to save a buck. So we come in, pretty much it’s innovation that’s geared directly towards that. So reducing pumping costs, helping people optimize product pumping and processes, and helping them reduce chemical usage. You're talking dollars and cents, and you can make a pretty quick ROI, people tend to listen.

Todd Schnick: Follow the money. I get it. Nick, you mentioned the headquarters in Indianapolis. We understand that you're planning a significant expansion of your manufacturing facilities there. Tell us more about that and that investment.

Nick: Well that’s a huge construction site at the moment. We already have a few hundred thousand square feet of manufacturing in Indianapolis as it is. We believe in producing for the U.S. market, within the U.S. market, so it’s a significant investment for Endress+Hauser.

We’re adding at least two new buildings, both of them around 100,000 square foot, to produce Coriolis mass flow meters — help us produce even more magnetic flow meters, and also adding more level and pressure systems.

So we can deliver, we can repair, we can train — everything — in Indy.

Todd Schnick: I just have to make a comment. It’s just great to hear a story about manufacturing facility in the U.S. getting built up to the scale that you're talking about.

Todd Youngblood: Yeah, that’s awesome stuff.

Todd Schnick: I mean that’s just terrific. But I want to go back to — you talked about new products and services a little bit earlier. Let’s go up to 10,000 feet. Talk more about innovations in the industry and the kind of things you see coming down the pike, the next couple of years.

Nick: Yeah. So everybody, we see — pretty classic, like you said. It’s a pretty traditional industry, what they're going to look at. It’s legislation and regulation are always tightening. So people are always looking for an easier way to do that. And of course, a more efficient way of meeting legislation and cost savings. So those two general trends, we try to follow.

We produce instruments that are more easy to work on, provide better accurate readings, so you can reduce usage, and also are easy to install.

Todd Schnick: You mentioned some of the products you're going to unveil here at ACE 2012. What are some other things you can hope to accomplish here at ACE 2012?

Nick: These products are brand new that we have here at ACE. So this is the first time you're going to see them, at this show. So they're just out of the box. Just took the wrappers off. I mean, this is fresh. 

Todd Schnick: These are brand spanking new.

Nick: This is brand spanking — and the first.

Todd Schnick: So this is an educational platform to this market.

Nick: Exactly. This is the first time anybody’s going to see them, besides the guys that made them, so feel free to stop by the booth and take a look. They’ll be released at the end of this month, so they have a lot of opportunity to get ahead of the game.

Todd Schnick: Speaking of education, how the heck? This is such a complex industry. So many different moving parts that need to be integrated. What kind of things do you do to help folks just understand all the complexities, not only of your own products, but how they get integrated with other pieces of the whole system?

Nick: Well, we’ve taken that on with another production side, so we’re building facilities across the United States for training, specifically. So you’ll see a new facility in Philadelphia, a new facility in Houston, a new facility in California, where we’re actually inviting customers to look at live operating processes on the rigs.

You can come in, you get certified training there, you can work on calibrations, you can work on maintenance, and you can discuss how to actually apply these instruments in real live processes in the field, in the real environments.

Todd Schnick: So you're saying your building facilities not only in Indianapolis but the couple of other cities you're talking about. But that’s more than a classroom, I think, from what you’re saying?

Nick: Oh yes, much more than a classroom. We’re talking about real tanks, real pumps, real processes and drives. So it’s a real operational water treatment setup.

Todd Schnick: Let me ask you a question, Nick, that’s important to the Water Online audience. What is one thing that plant operators can do to begin saving money?

Nick: Certainly, plant operators have to look at a broad array of issues that they have at their plants. You have to look at whether you're going to be fined by EPA, whether you're going to be saving more money pumping. If you're going to use the right technology to reduce pumping costs. And, of course, you want to make your people happy internally.

So the less they're working on a device over and over again, the more reliable the device, and the more appropriate the technology, the easier everyone’s life is going to be.

Todd Schnick: How do you help your customers work with collaborating, with all of the different entities? There’s so many different people involved: technology suppliers, IT people, government regulations. How the heck do you get all of those folks to play together well in the same sandbox?

Nick: Well, that’s definitely where I came from. We have a very large project management group installed in Greenwood, Indiana. We also have a project management group in Houston, Texas, as well. So for any coordination needs required, we’re happy to do that.

I mean, we’re not primarily a project management company, but we certainly like to advise on that if required.

Todd Schnick: All right, Nick. I hate to say it, but we’re out of time. Before we let you go, how can people get in touch with you, and where can they learn more about Endress+Hauser?

Nick: Oh. You can always go to our website at www.us.endress.com. And my name is Nick Camin, you can always ask for me.

Todd Schnick: All right. Well, Nick Camin, the Environmental Industry Manager with Endress+Hauser, it was great to have you. Thanks so much for joining us.

Nick: Thank you, gentlemen.

Todd Schnick: All right, that wraps this segment. On behalf of our guest, Nick Camin, my co-host, Todd Youngblood, all of us at Water Online, I am Todd Schnick. We’ll be right back with our next guest.