A measured response to current trends
Measuring and controlling the parameters of the manufacturing process is the province of Hanley Measurement & Control, based in Mulhuddart, Co. Dublin.
Measuring and controlling the parameters of the manufacturing process is the province of Hanley Measurement & Control, based in Mulhuddart, Co. Dublin.
The company is one of seven companies that make up Hanley Controls Group, the largest instrumentation and control company in Ireland with 120 people and a turnover of around €20m.
The group has two operations in the UK: DP instrumentation in Dundee, which offers control instrumentation and devices to the process industries; and KC Controls based in Crawley. Between them they cover an area from Scotland down to Newcastle and from the south coast as far as Birmingham, and the gap centred on the M6 corridor is something that Hanley Measurement and Control managing director Chris Kennedy is looking to address.
The pharmaceutical sector accounts for around 60% of his company's business in Ireland, a figure that is likely to grow. One trend that has boosted the business is the movement of some measurements out of the laboratory and into the field because sample conditions change between the reactor and the lab. 'People are now looking to see what can be done close to the process itself,' Kennedy says. 'That is an area we have been involved in.'
Another driver is the need for containment of toxic and hazardous substances, and the company has worked with US-based Canty Process Technology to offer a new concept that allows operators to see what is happening within a process vessel without exposing the product or the operator to any risk.
Another opportunity he is currently exploring is putting together dedicated skids to meet customer demand for reducing the time it takes to build a plant by using modular construction methods - what Kennedy describes as 'a kind of plug & play'.