Understand what Industrial Instrumentation is and what it is for

Maintaining adequate control over a company`s processes is a fundamental factor not only for field operators, but also for the whole corporation. For this reason, industrial instrumentation, as well as automation, has become increasingly present in different areas of the industry. As it performs on quality control, staff safety and process optimization, it has a direct influence on the efficiency of production processes and the result of the final product.

In this article, you will understand what Industrial Instrumentation is, why it exists and what are the benefits of using this type of technology in your industrial processes.

What is Industrial Instrumentation

Industrial Instrumentation is the science that studies, develops and applies instruments for the transmission, registration, control and adjustment of variables in order to improve the performance of most processes. According to ISA - Instrument Society of Automation, an industrial instrument is any device used to directly or indirectly measure and/or control process variables. According to ISA, this category includes the devices present in the Level 1 of the Automation Pyramid, such as sensors, transmitters and positioners, computational devices, electrical alarm devices, keys and buttons, among others.

Each industry has a high number of physical variables that directly impact the performance of its production process. The role of industrial instruments is to monitor these variables to provide data that enbale the control system to understand the current state of the application. An efficient measurement results in a better performance of the production chain, since it allows the production processes of an industry to be carried out and, if necessary, adjusted without interruptions.

An example to be used is one of the most famous industrialized products in the world: Coca-Cola soft drink. You can buy a can of this drink in different regions of the planet which will always taste the same,  with the same percentage of sugar, the same amount of dye and the same volume in the can in all these places. This uniformity is mainly due to a standardization and precision of the instruments involved in the manufacturing process of the product. In any soft drink factory around the world, the preparation temperature, the pressure and level variables of the tanks, the quantity of ingredients and the flow rate in the equipment will always be the same.

Benefits of Industrial Instrumentation

Developed in the 1940s, industrial instrumentation was born from the necessity to optimize the use of pneumatic transmission and control instruments. The idea was to automate the monitoring and processing flow so that the operator would not need to manually open and close valves. Over the past 80 years, these technologies have been improved to ensure more savings, efficiency and safety for production processes.

By monitoring in real time the state of the equipment that is part of an industry`s production processes, the instrumentation can perform preventive or/and corrective maintenance procedures tests for these devices. These constant monitoring routines provide greater safety for employees, by warning about equipment malfunctions, resulting in savings - reducing expenses with replacing parts and unnecessary replacements - and, consequently, permits more accurate and high quality production.

Precision and reliability for control and instrumentation with the Atta Series

Just like the ants that use the vibrations of the soil to orient themselves through the steppes and savannahs, your business also needs devices with high level of precision to monitor performance and adjust critical points in your production processes. With a wide variety of HART® instruments for monitoring variables and valve positioning, the Atta Series has products that are essential to your instrumentation demands.

Get to know the Altus HART® instrument solution in detail! Click here to download the official family catalog, see the Atta Series products and find the ideal solution to increase the accuracy and control level of your business.