The big news today is the unveiling of the $30 million Emerson Innovation Center to advance Fisher technology in Marshalltown, Iowa. From the release:
The world’s appetite for energy is driving the development of next-generation nuclear plants, mega-train liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants, and large oil and gas refineries, which require larger capacities and highly engineered control valves and instrumentation. The 136,000-square-foot Emerson Innovation Center is designed to help companies deliver record volumes of natural gas and other forms of energy and consume less in the process, reducing costs and making plants run quieter and with reduced greenhouse emissions.
The center is home to the world’s largest “flow lab” that, for the first time, enables large valves to be tested in real-world plant conditions to ensure production reliability, efficiency, environmental compliance, and safety before being installed at a customer site.
I’m not at the big event, but I’ve been following the action closely in Twitter and on blogs such as Gary Mintchell’s Feed Forward blog and Eoin Ó Riain’s Read-out Instrumentation Signpost blog.
Sound Off! Editors’ Blog‘s Walt Boyes is sharing real-time photos of the lab using his TweetPhoto and Facebook accounts. You can see pictures of a noise testing assembly, acoustic lab-noise reduction technologies, and a Westinghouse safety cooling valve on test as well as some of the event’s presenters. These pictures help bring to life what those of us not there, can see.
Just to give you a flavor for some of the news being shared in Twitter:
garymintchell: Emerson lab also used for testing to develop products with lower noise emission for quieter plants.
kyleyleger: Smalltown pride, company pride & individual pride & ownership is the strong foundation of our business. -Buzbee #EMR
garymintchell: Ed Monser Emerson Corp COO – it’s a big deal for me for this investment to be here. Finest collection of valve engineers on planet.
waltboyes: Friction test uses new human centered design https://tweetphoto.com/21998256
kyleyleger: Grand opening includes 7 demonstrations of never been done before Fisher technology. Demos presented by industry leading experts. #EMR
Having events like these unfold in real-time through the social media channels provides those not in attendance with a way to follow the action.
We’re starting the planning process for this year’s Emerson Exchange event Sep 27 through Oct 1 in San Antonio to add social media components for the benefit of both those who can attend and those who can’t join us in person.
Update: Gary Mintchell adds more this morning on yesterday’s event in today’s post, Emerson’s Innovation Center Opening.
