Industrial IT software solutions provider Wonderware UK & Ireland has been appointed by Gas Recovery and Recycle Limited (GR2L) to support its breakthrough into the China market by providing an improved data collection and reporting service.
Recovery, purification and recycling of purge gases
Established in 2008, GR2L is a specialist in the recovery, purification and recycling of purge gases used in the photovoltaics, microelectronics and material processing industries. The company’s product, the ArgonØ™, is focused on point-of-use argon recycling - recovering and recycling up to 95 per cent of the purge gas from a vacuum furnace in a closed loop system and delivering a 90 per cent average cost saving to users.
By recycling argon gas, GR2L’s customers can improve the reliability of their argon supply, make cost savings and reduce their CO2 footprint by eliminating the need to have argon delivered via large cryo-refrigerated vehicles.
The availability of high purity argon, primarily a byproduct from air separation producing oxygen for steel manufacturing, has decreased over the past four years, resulting in significant price rises.
Reduced availability of argon in China
China, in particular, has been hit hard with price increases of approximately 400 per cent as the slowdown of the country’s steel manufacturing industry has led to the reduced availability of argon. As a result, a company in China has ordered 55 of GR2L’s ArgonØ units to ensure it has a reliable, consistent supply of the gas.
For internal maintenance purposes, GR2L produces regular reports on its ArgonØ units to ensure they are recovering and recycling 90 per cent or more of the available argon. However, these reports had previously been generated by hand, which was time consuming and cost-ineffective.
Recognising the need for a more efficient solution, GR2L turned to Wonderware UK & Ireland, who recommended installing its automated information management solution, Wonderware InSight powered by Wonderware Online.
Designed to collect, store, visualise and analyse industrial data, Wonderware InSight powered by Wonderware Online enables users to make smarter business decisions without requiring any additional IT staffing or infrastructure.
Software enables GR2L to monitor the health of its ArgonØs remotely
The software enables GR2L to monitor the health of its ArgonØs remotely, allowing immediate access to the units’ performance data from anywhere in the world via a range of devices, as well as allowing engineers to see trends in the collected data and enabling them to carry out pro-active maintenance to improve the performance of the units where necessary.
GR2L’s customers can also choose to directly access their ArgonØ’s performance data as an additional paid for service after the first year of their contract.
Rob Grant, CEO at GR2L, said: “By adding Wonderware software to our ArgonØ units, we will immediately improve our data collection and reporting capabilities. We will also be able to monitor the performance and efficiency of our equipment and processes more quickly and effectively, while simultaneously improving productivity by no longer needing to manually produce reports.
“We believe the availability of real-time data delivered by the Wonderware solutions will be transformative for our business - not least because we now have the ability to maintain and improve the performance of our ArgonØ units in China remotely from our headquarters in Surrey – and we’re delighted to have Wonderware UK & Ireland working alongside us to make that happen.”