At a recent industry event, an expert suggested that 70% of installed flowmeters are either the wrong technology or the wrong size (generally too large) for the application. The specific statistic is debatable, but most who travel in process industries agree with the general implication. Unfortunately, the reasons for this are often symptomatic of larger industry related issues.

In some situations, the physical configuration of a flowmeter can be

        While selections of a physically incompatible technology (For example,, using a magnetic flowmeter for a non-conductive liquid) are generally very rare控制工程网版权所有, less than optimal choices are more commonCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, and oversized devices turn up in to some extent in virtually any plant environment. Ultimately, selection problems emerge more from misunderstandings related to the process than misunderstandings of flowmeter technologies.
        Process ignorance
        "Fitting the technology ultimately comes down to the questionCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, 'why do you want to measure this?'" says Peter Kucmas, product manager for flow at Endress+Hauser. Unfortunately he finds that many customers have a hard time answering even that most basic question. The solution has to be a process of probing for knowledge with the user. He advises, "Get the detail for the application: What is the flowmeter for? What is it doing? It's easy to write the range on a spec sheetCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, but what are the process dynamics and are they important? We, as instrumentation manufacturers, have to deal with people that aren't necessarily intimate with the process. So the knowledge of why that process measurement is needed gets watered down."
        Melissa Schumann控制工程网版权所有, instrumentation product specialist for Turck, finds that customers'