Honeywell has announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire InterCorr International Inc, a worldwide leader in solving corrosion and materials problems.
InterCorr’s proprietary SmartCET technology will be integrated with Honeywell’s Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS) to provide online, real-time data that will help customers reduce maintenance costs and increase unit productivity through minimising failures, avoiding unplanned downtime and increased run time.
Based in Houston, InterCorr is world-renowned for its technical expertise in the petroleum, energy and transportation sectors. The company has served more than 850 clients in 32 countries over its 21-year history. The company specialises in corrosion-monitoring instrumentation, testing and consulting services and predictive software and corrosion research.
“Global process control industries spend an average of $50 billion a year on corrosion problems, which can hinder their abilities to operate at optimal levels,” said Jack Bolick, president of Honeywell Process Solutions. “By integrating InterCorr technology with Experion PKS, we anticipate helping our customers save on corrosion detection and prevention. It has been estimated that the cost of corrosion can be reduced by up to 20 per cent through the paradigm shift gained by going from offline monitoring to InterCorr’s online, real-time technology.”
InterCorr’s services include materials consulting, laboratory-testing, measurement and test equipment servicing, analytical services and corrosion diagnostic and control services. Its software offerings include programmes for corrosion prediction, risk assessment, materials selection and asset management. InterCorr also provides systems for process control and the detection of general, pitting and microbiologically influenced corrosion.
“Corrosion has traditionally been a niche industry, partly because it has only provided off-line, historical data for general corrosion,” said Lars Jorgensen, InterCorr CEO. With the combination of InterCorr’s deep corrosion knowledge, SmartCet technology, and Honeywell’s vast process knowledge, the company was in a position to take proactive corrosion control to a new level, he added.
“SmartCET is designed to reduce the financial burden that corrosion-related problems bring to the process industries,” said Dr. Russel Kane, chief technologist and founder of InterCorr. “It provides online, real-time data that measures the corrosion rate in mils per year (mpy) and detects general and localised (pitting) corrosion conditions. Localised corrosion is responsible for approximately 70 per cent to 90 per cent of corrosion-related equipment failures.”
SmartCET gives plant operators access to current, actionable process variable information, such as the corrosion rate and pitting (localised corrosion) detection. Other parameters are available through the use of SmartCET that can be used for online corrosion diagnostics and for improved accuracy of corrosion rate information that was previously unavailable through process control systems. Integrated with Experion, SmartCET allows operators to transform raw corrosion-monitoring data into high-value process knowledge. Operators can use this information to make critical business decisions quickly and take proactive actions to optimise plant performance. As a result, plants experience several benefits, including increase in plant uptime due to improved reliability of assets; reduction in maintenance costs by moving from scheduled to reliability-centered maintenance; maximised production throughput; improved safety and minimising the deleterious effects of process upsets and excursions.
