Processing serves professionals who are focused on the development, management, maintenance and improvement of industrial processing operations to maximize product quality, output and profitability. With this mission, our annual Breakthrough Products Awards honor innovative technology solutions that made significant contributions to improvements in the process industries within the past year.
Processing is proud to present the 10 winners of the 2024 Breakthrough Products Awards. The manufacturers recognized this year introduced solutions that help end users effectively manage tough processing environments, meet stringent safety requirements, reduce unplanned downtime and drive overall profitability.
These awards celebrate major innovations as well as incremental improvements in technology that increase efficiency, productivity, safety and, ultimately, the bottom line.
Congratulations to the 2024 winners!
Aspen Technology
Aspen GDOT
AspenTech’s cutting-edge real-time dynamic optimization solution, Aspen GDOT, significantly boosts margins and energy efficiency in refineries and olefins plants by coordinating and optimizing multiple process units in a closed loop. It serves as a critical link between planning, scheduling, Advanced Process Control (APC) and operations teams bridging the gap between planning and operations to enhance performance beyond what is achievable by APC, planning and scheduling solutions alone.
GDOT’s real-time optimizer minimizes product giveaway and improves quality by adjusting multi-unit operations via automated targets to the underlying APC layer, while its Dynamic Data Reconciliation technology continuously calibrates models to track changing plant conditions. Key features include:
- Model Builder: A user-friendly, web-based flowsheet platform that simplifies GDOT model creation with drag-and-drop modeling templates. The template library includes AI-powered templates for optimizing high-value complex process units such as FCC and CCR.
- Dynamic Data Reconciliation: Functions as a plant’s digital twin, providing real-time estimates of process variables in streams and tanks. This feature constantly maps the real plant and compensates for unavailable quality measurements, ensuring continuous process feedback and data accuracy.
- GDOT Optimizer: Uses updated models, reconciled data and objective function to calculate the optimal solution based on prices, specifications, APC limits and statuses.
Emerson
DeltaV Edge Environment
The DeltaV Edge Environment is a first-of-its-kind integrated software solution that democratizes and contextualizes plant data out of the box, addressing the critical challenges of accessing and leveraging information from the DeltaV DCS. It provides an on-demand DeltaV digital twin, available both on-premise and to cloud-level users across the enterprise, facilitating real-time data access and analytics to drive operational improvements.
Traditional architectures for bringing OT data — with full context — to the enterprise level typically leave organizations with complex webs of disparate applications, each siloing data in different systems and formats. Moreover, the complex networking required to maintain such infrastructure is often fragile, making it difficult to keep systems cybersecure and up to date. The DeltaV Edge Environment overcomes these challenges with a streamlined, secure connection architecture that reduces network complexity and ensures efficient data transmission. By providing contextualized data, it makes information not only accessible but also meaningful and actionable. The DeltaV Edge Environment’s built-in data sandbox allows for safe testing and innovation, ensuring that enterprises can continuously improve without disrupting operations. Additionally, the system offers low-touch maintenance options, simplifying software deployment and updates, and reducing the burden on IT resources, making it an indispensable tool for modern industrial automation.
For organizations leveraging AI tools, the DeltaV Edge Environment provides a way to run those tools on the edge, placing the AI algorithms close to the sensors and to the process. Moreover, the ability to design and run applications within the sandbox environment gives users unprecedented capability to customize their operations.
EXAIR
ATEX Cabinet Cooler
EXAIR’s 316 Stainless Steel ATEX Cabinet Cooler Systems are the latest solution for protecting sensitive electronics in ATEX classified areas. This low-cost and reliable product is UL-tested, CE-compliant and meets the stringent requirements for use upon classified purged and pressurized electrical enclosures within Zones 2 and 22. With cooling capacities up to 5,600 Btu/Hr., it is an ideal answer for protecting electrical enclosures with problematic overheating in areas with explosive atmospheres, both indoors and outdoors.
EXAIR ATEX Cabinet Coolers produce and circulate cold air inside enclosures to prevent overheating, high temperature faults and costly shutdowns. They easily mount via a standard electrical knockout while maintaining the NEMA 4/4X integrity of enclosures in explosible areas. These systems include an auto-drain filter separator to ensure no water, dirt or contaminants from the compressed air system pass into the electrical enclosure. Thermostat controls are available to minimize compressed air use, and cold air distribution kits ensure balanced cold air flow to all areas of the enclosure.
Seeq
Seeq AI Assistant
The Seeq AI Assistant, embedded across the Seeq industrial analytics platform, provides real-time assistance to users across the enterprise, empowering them to quickly leverage the power of Seeq. Simply put, it enables users to do more, faster, and expand their skills. The Seeq AI Assistant guides users as they build advanced analyses, operationalize machine learning (ML) and more. The result is accelerated insights, improved decision making and significant gains in operational excellence and sustainability.
The Seeq AI Assistant unlocks decision insights across the organization of process engineers and domain experts via AI-generated natural language interactions. Seeq can deliver measurable results with this capability because it is the only platform with all four components required for SME and GenAI-enabled real-world industrial use cases.
- Time Series Analytics — Seamless access to critical time series and business data. The instant connectivity is in a default format that is perfected for SMEs and their AI. The world-class Seeq calculation engine is purpose-built for time series and events with AI-powered industrial analytics expertise.
- Context — Continuously codified and labeled by users as conditions, capsules, journals, comments and other collaborative notes and information. Data models, rules and labels are organically and transparently populated and maintained through collaborative use and working the problems.
- Industry Expertise — IP in design that informs monitoring workflows, prompt engineering and ML acceleration.
- UX — Humans at the center of decisions with a natural user interface and co-pilot assistance.
SmartSights
SmartBundle
SmartBundle provides a full-field view of operational conditions from anywhere, allowing users to make real-time decisions. The software offers insights on process data specifically tailored to key roles in organizations, from operators to management to compliance. SmartBundle benefits include:
- Extend reach for mobile access giving users streamlined, focused context to make smart decisions from anywhere.
- Improve productivity with visualization of the data that matters most.
- Increase uptime with holistic real-time process views.
- Simplify rationalization of data to focus on the needed metrics.
The software’s SmartFocus feature includes snippets of information to monitor critical data without having to search. Users can also manage process performance in real time and compare historical analytics to improve efficiencies. Through customizable widgets that tell the story of the critical data, users can expand their HMI reach.
In today's competitive industrial landscape, SmartBundle helps ensure equipment uptime and improve productivity, cost-efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Key Technology
COMPASS Optical Sorter
The COMPASS optical sorter for individually quick frozen (IQF) products such as fruits, vegetables, seafood, poultry and meat identifies and removes foreign material (FM) and product defects to protect food safety and final product quality.
COMPASS is ideal for whole products, slices, dices and crumbles, as well as product mixes. Utilizing in-air inspection, this chute-fed sorter "sees" all sides of the product with no blind spots. It detects and rejects plastic, glass, metal, stones and other FM including extraneous vegetable matter (EVM) such as leaves and toxic weeds. Processor-specified product defects are also removed from the line with virtually no false rejects. When inspecting product mixes, COMPASS can be programmed to ensure the ingredients are correctly proportioned. Located at the end of the processing line, immediately prior to packaging, this advanced sorter helps ensure final product quality.
The ergonomic user interface resembles smart devices for effortless navigation. Engineered from the ground up to maximize sanitation while simplifying cleaning and maintenance requirements, COMPASS features an open, washdown-compatible design with easy access for personnel. Recipe-driven programming ensures consistent sort performance on every product run, which is especially valuable in high-changeover applications. Operators can create new recipes for new products or adjust existing recipes to accommodate product changes without assistance from an application engineer or service technician.
Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions
Qdos H-FLO
The Qdos H-FLO chemical metering and dosing pump was designed specifically for higher flow rates up to 158 gallons per hour (600 L/h). Qdos H-FLO delivers the same outstanding accuracy and reliability as other Qdos pumps but for higher flow rates with a variety of pumpheads and a range of different tube material to ensure chemical compatibility with the process fluid.
The Qdos H-FLO high-precision pump offers flexibility to be scalable with a customer’s process, whether it is in water and wastewater treatment, mining and mineral processing, chemical applications in food and beverage, or pulp and paper. Benefits of the new Qdos H-FLO include:
- Flowrates from 2.0 mL/min to 600 L/h (158 gallons per hour).
- Pressure capability up to 102 psi.
- RFID Pumphead detection ensures confirmation of correct pumphead.
- Revolution counter for pumphead service maintenance.
- Leak detection and fluid containment prevent spills and chemical exposure upon pumphead expiry.
- Network integration, control and communication options include EtherNet/IP, PROFINET and PROFIBUS for easy integration with SCADA/PLC.
- One common pump drive with several pumphead options for changing process conditions and chemistries.
Qdos H-FLO is supported with an optional pressure sensing kit that provides real-time pressure monitoring, which ensures process security and improves safety. The optional pressure sensing kit comes with configurable alarms for process monitoring.
KROHNE
OPTIBAR FC 1000
The OPTIBAR FC 1000 is a compact, high performance flow computer for volumetric flow calculation and heat quantity measurement of liquids and gases, including saturated steam and superheated steam. Commissioning and operation of the flow computer is quick and easy thanks to its user-friendly operating philosophy. The full-screen, multi-color touch screen offers extensive options for customizing the display of process readings to suit any customer applications. Communication and measured data transmission via HART protocol as well as the option for split-range operation allows very accurate differential pressure (DP) flow measurements especially at low working pressures. This makes the device an ideal enhancement for gas measurements with averaging pitot tubes as well as flow nozzle meters or Venturi meters with high measuring dynamics.
Its compliance with IAPWS-97 for water and steam calculations with condensate detection, makes this flow computer particularly useful for differential pressure (DP) flow measurement of saturated and super-heated steam. In addition, a variety of other calculation methods are available for the correction calculation of gases and liquids. For highly accurate measurements, the KROHNE flow computer provides correction of linearity errors of DP flow elements in real-time and in accordance with ISO 5167 requirements.
Kason Corporation
KR3020-SS High-Capacity Batch Sifter
The KR3020-SS High-Capacity Batch Sifter features a unique rectangular design, specifically tailored for high-efficiency industrial sifting. The KR3020-SS, so called for its 30 by 20-inch dimensions, is a product of customer-centric innovation, created initially for a specific requirement in the food processing industry. The sifter, which is designed to be mounted on top of a mixer or hopper to provide a sanitary gap-free solution for food-grade applications, features a convenient bag-cutting shelf design to assist operators rip and tip.
Capable of managing high-capacity processing, it incorporates an ingenious magnet drawer beneath the screen. This feature is instrumental in capturing ferrous materials, further guaranteeing product purity and safety. Further, its single-motor design not only reduces power consumption, but also streamlines maintenance. Among its standout attributes, the KR3020-SS features a counterweighted lid, ensuring easy and safe operation. Its compact stature makes it perfect for smaller enterprises, particularly those where space is at a premium. The unit also arrives complete with a dust control port, ready for integration with existing dust collection systems.
The KR3020-SS finds application across multiple sectors, including nutraceuticals, where manual bag dumping is prevalent. It also offers versatility by coupling with mixers, hoppers, or other equipment. This adaptability makes it an ideal retrofit for existing setups. Additionally, its screens come in various mesh sizes, ensuring flexibility and suitability for a wide range of material types and sizes.
NETZSCH Pumps & Systems
NEMO MY Magnetically Coupled Pump
The NEMO MY Magnetically Coupled Pump — an innovative pump designed to meet the most demanding requirements of industries requiring leak-free pumping solutions — is ideal for use in chemical, pharmaceutical and food applications to convey highly viscous product. The NEMO MY Magnetically Coupled Pump features a hermetically sealed design, eliminating the risk of leakage.
The pump utilizes a magnetic coupling to transmit torque, ensuring a completely sealed and robust system. This design enhances safety and reliability, making it ideal for handling aggressive, toxic or abrasive product. Engineered for versatility, the NEMO MY Magnetically Coupled Pump can handle a wide range of viscosities, from low-viscosity fluids to highly viscous, shear-sensitive substances. The pump provides continuous, pressure-stable and low-pulsation conveyance, ensuring consistent and reliable performance.
