Today’s world looks very different than it did just a year ago. The pandemic has added to the list of what users of valves and related equipment faced in the past. However, as with many of life’s interruptions, the current challenges have also brought creative new tools.

Being old fashioned, I still thumb through physical journals and tear out pages. In preparation for writing this article, I spent time reviewing interesting pieces I recently got from industry magazines. One factor I noticed was that every article on the subject of the Internet of Things (IoT) was about applications inside the factory. For example, there were articles on machine monitoring, equipment monitoring, preventive maintenance and similar topics.

The offshore oil and gas industry began in 1947 when the first well defined as “out of sight of land” was completed at a depth of only about 15 feet (4.6 meters) of water in the Gulf of Mexico. Since that first well was drilled, the offshore sector of oil and gas has become a vital part of where we get these valuable resources. Because of this, exploration and production have moved to deeper and deeper water depths. Nowadays, producible oil and gas are commonly found at depths that are half-a-mile to two-and-a-half miles (1 to 4 kilometers).

As the first virtual Market Outlook was occurring (Aug. 6 and 7), the world was in the grips of the Coronavirus pandemic and an economic recession that was just starting to ease up. Yet the well-received VMA/Hydraulics Institute event was not all doom and gloom. One of the main themes that speakers repeated was that it is just such times of challenge when innovation and new ideas are born.