Consulting engineers visit a Honeywell Centre of Excellence
Honeywell’s centre of excellence for water-control products is based at Mosbach, Germany. Located south of the Odenwall Mountains, Honeywell’s water-products manufacturing, research-and-development facility is appropriately positioned near flowing water —the confluence of two rivers, the Neckar and Elz, which are both tributaries of the Rhine.
Wholesome (potable) drinking water is arguably the most important of the utilities and services provided in domestic and commercial buildings.
Hygienically safe drinking water supplied at sufficient pressure, quantity and the required temperature is critical to the well-being of people in all buildings.
Honeywell provides Continuing Professional Development (CPD) seminars to help extend the general engineering knowledge and application of water-control products and systems.
Training sessions are usually held at a recipient’s premises, but it is sometimes more appropriate to visit Honeywell’s test and research facilities and combine seminars with working demonstrations of generic water controls.
In June a party of UK consultant engineers visited Honeywell’s Mosbach facility in Germany to attend a series of seminars and demonstrations of water-control products and systems.
Organised and hosted by Tony Gorman and Brian Lipscombe of CentraLine by Honeywell their guests included Chris Pitcher and Jayson Oliver of Aecom, Kat Lechowska of the Waterman Group, Jack Dash, Stephanie Pieri and Paria Moghaddar of Arup, and Richard Goard of Flatt Consulting.
Honeywell’s application and engineering training staff gave a series of technical presentations on commercial water products and hygiene systems.
Three key subjects were included in the training sessions.
• Direct and indirect pressure-control valves, the application of pressure-regulating valves (PRV) in boosted cold- and hot-water systems and surge safety valves.
• Design of domestic hot water supply, focusing on hygienic return systems and thermal balancing.
• Reverse-rinse self-cleaning water-filter applications, for example in rain-water-recovery installations.
Training seminars also provide a forum with Honeywell staff for sharing experiences and the future of system design, regulations and water-conservation strategies.
A factory tour was an important part of the consulting engineers’ visit.
Casting and machining, assembly, quality control and testing gave an important insight into the close attention to detail required in the overall production process.
A particularly important aspect of the factory visit was the demonstrations of control valves under live water pressure, as often the operation of water controls is difficult to examine when installed in a building’s distribution and storage system.
Richard Goard, associate director of Flatt Consulting, said, ‘The visit to the Honeywell Centre of Excellence for water controls was most interesting. The demonstration of water controls working under actual pressurised water conditions was particularly useful in understanding their operating performance.
‘Seminars with a manufacturer are an efficient and effective interchange of information, new developments and current and future system design requirements.’
Brian Lipscombe, senior account manager for CentraLine by Honeywell, added, ‘It is very useful and enlightening to discuss water-distribution products and systems with professional engineers at our centre of excellence.
‘Joint seminars, demonstrations and industry forums not only support our colleagues in the industry but also helps us improve our response to their application and design needs necessary to meet statutory requirements and good engineering practice.’
If you would like to learn more about Honeywell’s programme of Continuing Professional Development or discuss visiting a Honeywell Centre of Excellence please visit the link below.
