European education facility in France

Control valve training helps to minimise unscheduled shutdowns, reduce maintenance costs and optimise plant performance

As part of its global service initiative, Emerson Process Management has opened a new European Education Facility at the valve manufacturing centre of excellence in Cernay, France. Opened to meet the Fisher® valve training requirements of customers from across Europe, the facility aims to support companies that want to minimise unscheduled shutdowns, reduce maintenance costs and optimise their plants.

New European Education Facility meets the Fisher valve training requirements of customers from across Europe

The new facility extends Emerson’s educational support by offering a broad range of training tools and courses aimed at European control valves users. Delivered by experienced and certified trainers, the training courses have been designed to cover all aspects of control valves, including engineering, optimisation, diagnostics and maintenance.

"The new European Education Facility will help customers that want to make significant plant improvements, but also face the prospect of losing valuable experienced engineers through retirement," said Hans Nieuwpoort, Director Quick Ship & Service Fisher Europe, Emerson Process Management. "Losing valuable experience can potentially lead to increasing and longer shut down periods, which lowers plant efficiency. By providing new and existing workers with the necessary skills and understanding of control valves and instrumentation, we aim to minimise the impact of this lost experience."

A unique feature of the facility is its Flow Laboratory, which provides a sophisticated training infrastructure for control valves and instrumentation. The laboratory includes a flow loop and a dynamic performance loop, both powered by Emerson’s PlantWeb™ digital plant architecture. This is equipped with multiple communicating systems, software and instrumentation, allowing participants to learn how control valve technologies affect the dynamic performance and impact their processes.

The new education facility was officially opened in last May (2013). Emerson customers who attended the opening event were given an opportunity to discuss the range of courses and training tools available that can be specifically linked with their own activities. Attendees were also provided with an insight into valve sizing and Emerson’s Fisher FIELDVUE™ digital valve controller technology.