Process automation requires in-line instrumentation managed by technicians and engineers familiar with new technologies. To help provide them with classroom and hands-on training, Endress+Hauser (www.us.endress.com) has dedicated a $16 million, 80,000-sq.-ft. customer center at its manufacturing and sales campus in Greenwood, Ind.
“Customers can send operators, maintenance personnel, engineers and other process people to our new customer center to get hands-on, real-world application expertise in a state-of-the-art customer training facility,” noted Todd Lucey, general manager of the firm’s U.S. operations, at a dedication ceremony Sept. 10. Many of the customers the firm expects to host will be from the food & beverage industry, E+H’s second largest market for flow, pressure and level instrumentation.
The Customer Center Process Training Unit (PTU) is a fully functional miniature proess plant with more than 120 Endress+Hauser field instruments controlled by a Rockwell Automation PlantPAx system – the result of a 10-year-old strategic alliance between the two automation firms. The PTU also has multiple classrooms, a WiFi network for wireless device access to PTU network, flowmeters with Heartbeat Technology, separate oil/water column to demonstrate interface measurement, server “phone home” feature for 99.99999 percent up-time availability and many more unique features.
The center, which includes a wellness clinic, fitness center and cafeteria, is the 10th expansion at the firm’s U.S. headquarters, boosting it to approximately 500,000 sq. ft. under roof on a 50-acre site in suburban Indianapolis. LEED certification is being sought for the center.
E+H's expansions are symptomatic of a renaissance of American manufacturing. Read Kevin Higgin's blog: Quality Focus Helps Reverse Offshoring of U.S. Manufacturing.
