Market Impact Factors and Challenges of the Flow Meter

The development of flow measurements can date back to the ancient water conservancy works and urban water supply systems. In the ancient Roman Caesar era, hole plates were used to measure the drinking water volume of residents. Ancient Egypt measured the flow of the Nile around 1000 BC. China's famous Dujiangyan water conservancy project used the Aquarius mouth water level to observe the water size and so on.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global investment needs to total $26.0 trillion (in dollars) in energy infrastructure from 2007 to 2030. Of this, the power industry invested us $13.6 trillion, accounting for 52.3 percent of the total investment. By 2030, the oil, gas and electricity infrastructure will need to be replaced in many parts of the world. In the long run, the foreseeable energy investment will bring considerable development space for the application of the flow meter in the oil, gas and energy industry sectors.

Facing the fierce competitive environment, and in order to cope with the global demand for energy conservation and emission reduction, users in all industries pay more attention to the operation efficiency of the production plants, and reduce energy consumption as much as possible to improve their competitiveness. As a result, a significant investment is used to improve the level of automation in the plant and the field data collection and real-time monitoring, in order to improve the efficiency of process control in the plant. In the oil, gas and energy industries, reliable fluid measurement equipment is needed in closed transmission facilities, and high precision flow meters are needed in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and various trends will drive the development of sensors and field equipment (including flow meters). More electronic technologies, such as digital signal processing (DSP), are being introduced into microprocessors, which enable self-diagnostics and better communication with the production control level. The improvement of performance better meets the needs of industry users and creates more market application space for PANEL FLOW METER.

The current global economic situation needs to be further boosted, and the demand for industrial products is not strong. Many industry users are slowing investment in new projects or suspending equipment updates, waiting for signs of recovery in the global economy. Therefore, in the short term, this will have a certain impact on the development prospects of the flow meter in its main application industries. The global flow meter market is full of many manufacturers, and the competition is extremely fierce. At the same time, flow meter manufacturers are facing the more demanding price requirements of industry users. In order to make the products better penetrate into the main industries of flow meter application, the price competition between manufacturers is inevitable. This phenomenon is common in emerging economies, especially in China. Price is often the most important determinant of purchasing behavior. In the long run, producers pay more attention to price strategies, resulting in the lack of product innovation and the obstruction of market development.

Challenges: traditional mechanical flow meters, such as differential pressure flow meter, volumetric flow meter and variable area flow meter, are already in the stage of popularization, with fierce price competition, decreasing profit space, less technological innovation, and the market is relatively mature. Frost & Sullivan believes that achieving product differentiation and customized production is an important breakthrough point in the fierce competition for manufacturers in mature markets. Based on Frost & Sullivan's analysis of the needs of industry users, the user group wants manufacturers to provide automated equipment that brings real benefits to the production process. Users will produce specific needs in the process of product application, such as: application in the special environment of the petrochemical industry, the need for robust design and explosion-proof certification; the user's demand for direct pipe design, etc. How to effectively obtain the actual needs of users, and to improve the traditional products, is a big challenge to the differentiated and customized production process of manufacturers.Guiding users to accept and use new technology flow meters, such as ultrasonic flow meter, electromagnetic flow meter, thermal mass flow meter and V cone flow meter (hole plate flow meter), is another challenge for manufacturers to make the market bigger and stronger. In addition, while new technology flow meters are constantly being introduced into various industries, fast and effective after-sales service is also critical to manufacturers. In particular, the use of the GAS FLOW METER based on the foundation fieldbus and ProfibusPA bus, which has certain requirements for software technology, effective services can provide users with more suitable solutions, and close to users.

Development trend: The innovation from mechanical flow meter to electronic technology flow meter is one of the most important development trends of flow meter. Electromagnetic flow meter, ultrasonic flow meter, vortex street flow meter and V-cone flow meter (hole plate flow meter) use the electrical principle to work, so as to avoid the movement parts that need to be replaced in the mechanical flow meter work. At the same time, the self-diagnosis function is introduced into the flow meter, making the FLOW METER not only a simple measurement tool, but also more for the purpose of system maintenance, such as empty pipeline detection and self-inspection. Moreover, after combining the advanced communication technology in the electronic flow meter, the controller can obtain the traffic data and historical data of the production site remotely and in real time.

According to Frost & Sullivan research, about 89.0% of the current global traffic meters use the mAHART communication protocol, because the mAHART communication protocol has lower installation difficulty and operation requirements than the fieldbus protocol, and the introduction of the fieldbus system is also a large cost for users. However, as industry users continue to improve their automation level, they want to get more information from traffic measurement than traffic data, such as diagnostic information and status detection, which all rely on fieldbus support. Moreover, manufacturers like Siemens and Emer are focusing on traffic measurement technology for fieldbus agreements. It is believed that this will certainly promote the application prospect of the fieldbus protocol flow meter in various industries. In addition, the wireless technology flow meter is also gradually being accepted by the users, and the fluid measurement in the harsh environment is a good application space for the wireless technology. However, it will take some time for users to fully accept and popularize wireless technology traffic meters.