June 28, 2014: What is Wireless Tank Telemetry?

Today, many companies and storage tanks owners are still using the tried and true manual methods of monitoring their tanks. They send personnel and resources to the tank, put a stick inside it, read the measurement and mark it down on a clipboard. While this may seem a safe way to continue to do business, technology has come to replace this, offering you more efficient ways to handle this mundane task and allow you to better utilize your resources to handle other important task. Apart from allowing you to accurately take stock of your tank inventory, it allows you to eliminate downtime, leaks, run outs, and theft.

Wireless Remote Tank monitoring, like that of Turraco Industrial, is a solution that can interact with other systems and has device management capabilities to help your business run more effectively.

Our tank monitoring system all starts with a measurement sensor. The sensor, often designed for a specific substance or environment, is used to provide the metrics and readings that, along with the transmission backbone and the data management and alerting capabilities, is what creates a full solution.

Since tanks come in so many different shapes and sizes the sensor that is used for monitoring is, first and foremost, the most critical part of the solution. At the site, the second critical part of the solution is the data communication and management, which is typically done by some type of communication device or intelligent controller. The tank related information is gathered from the sensor and then transmitted to a person or a backend system that is capable of deciphering the information to make critical decisions. This is the actual monitoring piece of the solution.

Some of our systems can offer the ability to also control the equipment used to fill the tank such as pumps or valves. When this is involved as part of the solution it is called a control solution. Intelligent controllers can provide both monitoring and control capability at the remote site. The ability to control the equipment remotely either in a manual or automated fashion can provide businesses the ability to better utilize support resources and maintain the site without the fear of excessive down time from equipment outages or costly spills.

Finally, and most importantly, is the ability to have a solution that alerts you when there is a problem. By having a tank monitoring solution that alerts you when the tank is, say, approaching full or almost empty, you can manage the remote site from any PC or Smartphone without the need to have support personnel repeatedly visiting the site either daily or weekly. Alerts can be set for any metric, or event for a series of events or interdependencies.

When determining the right solution for remote tank monitoring, knowing your tank, the location, and the substance you are monitoring are also critical. It is often best to go with a flexible solution such as ours that allows you to handle any condition on the site and allows for integration with other systems on site. However if you choose to integrate with point solutions be sure that it will handle your exact requirements.

Using remote monitoring solutions can free up your support resources, reduce service costs, production downtime, and unnecessary truck rolls, allowing you to plan better, and operate in less of a reactive state. As a result, the payback is very quick on your investment.

Without remote monitoring, business impacting events such as equipment shutdown, lost production, and costly spills and compliance violations can occur unnoticed. When 24/7 production is your goal, and safety and compliance are critical, remote monitoring is a must.

When trying to make sense of tank monitoring or any remote monitoring and control applications you can count on the experts at Turraco Industrial to provide the right support in making the correct decision and also in providing a full solution that meets your needs and your budget.

Please use the Contact Us link above if you need help with your decision making process or need a quotation for solutions.  Turraco Industrial has many years of experience helping people just like you in making critical decisions.