Houston Automation Office Overview

The Houston Automation group recently had their summer outing – this year in Port Aransas, TX.

The Houston Automation Office was established in 2008 with two employees – Rama Sinha and Jose Barahona. Since then, the group has expanded to include a total of 12 employees: one business manager, one project manager (shared across the Gulf Coast), two office admins (shared with Telecom), and eight automation engineers.

All of Houston’s automation engineers have extensive experience with Allen-Bradley, GE, Modicon, and Siemens PLCs and HMIs, and several have expertise with Emerson, Honeywell, and Yokogawa DCSs. The primary control system manufacturers that the team works with are Allen-Bradley, Siemens, Honeywell and Yokogawa, and they excel with configuration and integration of numerous Historians for each.

In addition to standard control systems, the Houston Automation focuses extensively on low voltage drives and motors with experience in drives such as Allen-Bradley PowerFlex, Siemens SINAMICS, and Schneider Altivar; as well as with smart Motor Control Centers (MCC) that communicate via DeviceNet, EtherNet/IP, PROFIBUS (Process Field Bus) and PROFINET (Process Field Net).

While the large bulk of Houston Automation’s projects are for customers all throughout Texas, they have also completed projects in Canada, all four “corners” of the United States, and over a dozen states in between. Their 100+ customers come from a fairly diverse set of industries, with just over 70% being derived from the oil & gas (production, pipeline, & refining), chemical, manufacturing, and water & wastewater industries. Some of their many customers include:

  • Inteplast Group – plastics
  • Phillips 66 – coke handling
  • NOV – drilling
  • Shell Offshore – exploration and production
  • PeroxyChem – hydrogen peroxide
  • Shell Deer Park – refining and chemicals
  • Martin Midstream, Kinder Morgan, DCP Midstream and Agave Energy – pipelines
  • Bath Engineering and SevernTrent Engineering Services – water
  • Cytec Engineered Materials – resin sheet manufacturing
  • GAF – roofing shingles manufacturing
  • Merichem Gas Technologies – Canadian oil sands

Since opening, the Houston Automation group has worked on well-over 800 projects, including migrations and upgrades for numerous PLCs, HMIs, drives and power systems, as well as service calls on all types of control equipment ranging from instrumentation to SCADA to drives, and configuration and startup services for various DCS platforms. While those are typical, the team has been able to work on a few unique projects in very different industries, including upgrading an egg roll manufacturing line for Schwan’s Food Services and installing a system that tested hydraulic fracturing proppant for a ceramics company.

At Schwan’s, the Houston team installed a brand new system that provided insight into the customer’s egg roll cooking and packaging process: they installed thermocouples to analyze oil temperatures, installed a historian to track cooking oil low temperature events, and installed a camera at the end of the line to track if the packaging was labelled or not. The entire project ensured that the customer’s line met regulatory standards, provided a way for the customer to track the ebb and flow of their process, and helped to prevent recalls on products. Not to mention the project team had access to all the egg rolls they could eat!

The project for testing fracturing proppants was interesting and successful as well. Proppant beads are a type of hard, closed cell bead made out of sand, ceramic or clay which are used in the fracking industry to keep the hydraulic fracture in the structure open allowing the flow of gas, condensate and oil. The goals of the project included testing different ceramic proppant beads under very high pressure to determine if they were suitable for being used in the fracking process. The project consisted of a ControlLogix PLC and a Wonderware HMI and Historian to monitor all conditions of custom test cells filled with proppant beads which were used to simulate the pressures, temperatures, and flows that would be realized in actual fracking conditions. Using long-term test data that was both trended and historized, the customer could apply their proprietary analysis to determine at which point the test proppant failed and ultimately use that information to create a better proppant bead. The project was successful and the customer is on their way to producing beads that have the necessary permeability at high fracture pressures.

Houston Automation has enjoyed great success with their projects and services, and are currently expanding their portfolio into the Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) field with a few chemical plants and refineries like Shell Deer Park and Conoco.

The Houston Automation group regularly has lunches to get everyone on the team together. They also recently had their summer outing – this year in Port Aransas, TX. According to their Business Manager, Rama Sinha, they always have a great time and it gets better and better every year! He says that it’s also really fun to get all of the employees’ spouses, kids, and significant others together so everyone can get to know each other in different aspects of their lives.

Champion’s Houston Automation office by the numbers:

BY STATE

BY CUSTOMER

BY INDUSTRY

TYPE

TX – 91%

GAF-Elk Corporation – 8%

Oil & Gas – 34%

Fixed Fee Projects – 68%

CA – 4%

KMCO (Crosby), Inc. – 7%

Manufacturing – 22%

T&M Projects – 3%

NM – 2%

Lamberti USA Inc. – 5%

Specialty Chemicals – 10%

Service Calls – 29%

Alberta – Canada, & LA – 1%

Proven Engineering & Technologies, LLC – 4.5%

Water / Wastewater – 5%

 

 

Shell Offshore – 4%

Engineering Firms – 4%

 

 

Martin Midstream – 4%

Power – 4%

 

 

Cytec Engineered Materials – 4%

 

 

New Orleans Automation Office Overview

Oil States mooring winches control system on the Atlantica Delta in Dalian, China.

Nicholas Kidder, MCC room of a boiler in central Florida for FSE and Florida Crystals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New Orleans Automation office joined Champion after Ben LeBlanc came on board as a Business Manager in 2004. While Hurricane Katrina posed a major challenge in 2005, the group was able to recover and established a home base in Metairie within a year. Today, the New Orleans team consists of one business manager, five automation engineers, and one office administrator. They are always improving, but their main specialties include Allen-Bradley and Siemens PLC expertise, and DeltaV DCS and Honeywell DCS know-how. They also provided long-term international support for multiple clients.

The New Orleans office serves various industries including the oil and gas, marine, chemical, and sugar industries, to name a few. A cross-section of their many customers includes Triyards Houston, LLC; Oil States Industries, Inc.; Rain CII Carbon, LLC; Zatarain’s, and Entergy.

One of the largest and most notable projects that the New Orleans Automation team completed was the Versabar/Devon Energy Deck Lift System project in 2006. During this project, Champion designed a control system that synchronized 32 hydraulic cylinders to lift an offshore production platform. The system needed to synchronize the position of all eight platform legs within a very small range to prevent structural damage. Champion completed work for the first platform lift in October 2006. The force required to lift the platform was estimated at 1,900 tons! The second platform was successfully lifted the next month.

One of the New Orleans team’s current projects, with Supreme Integrated Technologies, requires them to automate a moon pool lift and recovery system (MLARS) for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) housed on a NOAA survey vessel. The MLARS is an opening where the AUV enters and exits; the AUV is a large self-controlled vehicle that will be used to explore and map the ocean floor. The team’s work will ensure that the AUV can enter and exit the survey vessel safely and reliably each time it goes on a mission.

New Orleans Champions are truly automating the world one system at a time – their portfolio features a healthy percentage of international work. One of the first international projects included the design, configuration, and commissioning of a wood-fired boiler system for Propal’s pulp and paper mill in Columbia. Today, you can find New Orleans’ engineers designing and automating a combustion control system for bagasse in a sugar mill based in La Romana, Dominican Republic.

From providing a combustion controls system in La Romana, to providing controls support in Guangzhou, China, New Orleans puts Champion on the map of integration companies with international experience many times over. They’ve traveled extensively and contributed Champion’s name to successful projects in the following countries:

  • Rio de Janerio, Brazil
  • Sao Paulo, Brazil
  • Orange Walk Town, Belize
  • Guyana
  • Santiago de Cali, Columbia
  • Dalian, China
  • Guangzhou, China
  • Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico
  • La Romana, Dominican Republic
  • Villahermosa, Mexico
  • Singapore
  • Vung Tau, Vietnam

When they’re not providing crane operations control systems in Vietnam or troubleshooting problems at home, the New Orleans team spends time with their families, a few folks compete in competitive racing, and they all participate in bowling nights.

OIL STATES 7000L CRANE ONBOARD THE LIFT BOAT ROBERT, DURING OFFSHORE OPERATIONS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO.

CAB OF THE 7000L ONBOARD THE LIFT BOAT ROBERT, DURING OFFSHORE OIL RIG SALVAGE OPERATIONS FOR OIL STATES.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Champion’s New Orleans office by the numbers (Since 2011):

BY STATE

BY CUSTOMER

BY INDUSTRY

TYPE

LA – 47%

Factory Sales & Engineering – 21%

Marine – 35%

Fixed Fee – 46%

International – 27%

Oil States Industries, Inc. – 14%

Manufacturing – 26%

T&M – 40.5%

TX – 15%

Hydraquip Corp – 12%

Coke Calcining – 7%%

Service Calls – 13.5%

MS – 7%

Triyards – 8%

Pulp & Paper – 3.5%

 

Gulf of Mexico – 2%

Rain CII Carbon LLC – 7%

Agriculture – 3.5%

 

 

Houston Telecom Office Overview

Microwave Install Offshore Equatorial Guinea

Tower Climbing & Rescue Training

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Champion’s Telecommunications Business Unit opened in 2008 to serve the Houston Metro area with deployment of microwave and fiber systems. The telecom office, warehouse, and staging yard are strategically located in North Houston and are coupled with the Houston Automation office.

The telecom staff, led by Business Manager Les Coker, includes project managers, designers, and field technicians who provide turnkey microwave and fiber installations and maintenance for approximately 20 active clients. Their main customers include CenterPoint Energy, Crown Castle, Alcatel-Lucent, Greater Harris County 911, and the City of Houston. The group also completed cellular work for customers such as AT&T and Verizon.

The Telecom Group’s work includes the evaluation of end-user needs, requirement definitions, budgeting, design, procurement and deployment support, project management, acceptance testing, maintenance, and 24×7 emergency on-site support of network infrastructure. Typical applications include radio frequency (RF) systems, RF path design, and cabling systems. The group holds expertise in microwave radio design, installation of Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking, and copper/fiber cabling systems.

In short, the Telecom Group ensures that customers have the most up-to-date and sensible communications networks through which to develop their company’s intranet, phone systems, and computer networks. They are the only business unit within the company that solely focuses on the communication cloud from concept to completion by providing point-to-point backbone networks, or communication paths, between various areas: city-to-city, plant-to-plant, or building-to-building, to name a few. In fact, the networks that the automation group uses to connect automation systems within a plant rely on the types of networks the Telecom Group designs and installs.

In the nine years since Champion began offering telecommunications services, Les and his team of seven telecommunication professionals have completed numerous projects related to public safety, electric utility, and education. Through the Telecom Group, Champion provided services to enhance public safety and homeland security though a contract to install the City of Houston’s 911 network. Most recently, a few members completed a project in Equatorial Guinea, Africa, to install four hops of microwave radios, providing a means of networking and communications on an offshore platform.

The team also recently installed fiber that supported a water plant and installed fiber for KMCO, LP’s plant in Crosby, TX in order to facilitate communications among all the control rooms in the plant. In the future, our well-rounded group of telecom experts hopes to further expand their fiber optic design and installation services to continue meeting technology and resource needs for these types of telecommunications projects throughout the Gulf Coast Region and the Rocky Mountain Midwest.

Champion’s Houston Telecom office by the numbers:

BY STATE

BY CUSTOMER

BY INDUSTRY

TYPE

TX – 97%

CenterPoint Energy – 81%

Power – 83%

Microwave Radio System Installations – 50%

International – 2%

Infinity TDCS – 5%

Government / Municipal – 11%

Inspections – 20%

MS & NM < 1%

Alcatel-Lucent. – 5%

Telecommunications – 4%

Repair & Maintenance – 20%

Crown Castle – 2%

Oil & Gas – 2%

 Path Surveys – 5%

 

Hess Corporation – 2%

 

 Tower Modifications & Upgrades – 3%

 

GlobaLogix, Inc. – 1%

 

 Other – 2%

Rocky Mountain Region Offices Overview

SALT LAKE CITY, UT OFFICE BUILDING FRONTAGE

Champion currently has three offices located in the Rocky Mountain region: Salt Lake City, UT (opened in March 2006); Grand Junction, CO (opened in June 2012); and Denver, CO (opened in March 2014).

While the three offices each have their share of local customers, they collaborate with customers across the Rocky Mountain region as one 25 person team. The automation group includes one business manager, three engineering managers, ten automation engineers, and three administrative personnel. At the Salt Lake City location, Champion also has a UL listed panel shop and a design team with five manufacturing technicians, one design team lead, one CAD technician, and one designer. In November 2014, the Salt Lake City office relocated from its previous site to a more expansive building (12,000 ft2) with a large office area (7,500 ft2) and spacious panel shop (4,500 ft2).

GRAND JUNCTION, CO OFFICE

DENVER, CO OFFICE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rocky Mountain team has over 80 customers located in numerous states from North Dakota to Texas and in various industries including oil and gas (upstream, midstream, and downstream), pipelines, truck/railcar loading/unloading, water/wastewater, alternative energy (solar, wind, gasification, biofuels, etc.), manufacturing, mining, and food and beverage. Some of the primary customers include Holly Energy Partners, UR Energy, ConocoPhillips Niobrara Area, and Summit Midstream.

SALT LAKE CITY SHOP

The three offices have extensive experience with flow computers and multiple PLC platforms such as Siemens, GE, Allen-Bradley, Modicon, SCADAPack, and several others. Champion’s Rocky Mountain Region automation engineers also complete sizeable DCS upgrades for several industries including uranium energy and refining and have experience with DCS platforms such as Siemens PCS 7, DeltaV, and Honeywell TDC. The group has numerous certified professionals including two Professional Engineers (PEs) at the Denver location and one in Grand Junction, as well as two certified Siemens PCS 7 engineers at the Salt Lake City office. This diversity and expertise allows the team to provide high quality solutions for their customers.

The Rocky Mountain team is made of people that have come from all over the United States as well as one individual from Romania. The various states include Iowa, Colorado, Utah, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Missouri, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and North Dakota, as well as others. The success of the Rocky Mountain Team is a result of their commitment to the high levels of communication and coordination required to operate as a single team over three geographical areas.

Champion’s Rocky Mountain offices by the numbers:

BY STATE

BY CUSTOMER

BY INDUSTRY

TYPE

UT – 64%

Newfield Production Company – 38%%

Chemical – 46%

Fixed Fee – 48.5%

WY – 10%

Holly Energy Partners – 11%%

Oil & Gas – 29%

T&M – 41%

CO – 9%

Holly Energy Partners – 11%

Transportation & Storage – 12%

Service Calls – 10.5%

NM – 6%

QEP Energy – 3%

Manufacturing – 5%

 

ND – 4%

ConocoPhillips Company – 3%

Coke Calcining – 2%

 

 ID, TX combined – 4%

Bill Barrett Corporation – 3%

Utilities – 2%

 

 CA, KS, NV, OK combined – 2%

Tech-Flow LLC – 2%

 

 

New Orleans Automation Office Overview

Champion’s Baton Rouge automation group started in 2000, originally operating from an office in downtown Baton Rouge before moving to Champion’s headquarters location. However, as the Baton Rouge automation group attracted more customers and added employees, the group relocated to its current office in 2012. As joint effort with the Lake Charles operations, Baton Rouge recently opened a new satellite office in Lafayette, LA to accommodate business in that area.

Over the past several years, the Baton Rouge business center added 23 employees to its original team of nine and now employs 32 people. As a whole, the Baton Rouge business center employs 20 automation engineers, two individuals in a supervisory or management role, two project managers, two administration personnel, one technician, one AutoCAD technician, one estimator, one technical writer, one co-op and one business development specialist who is a shared resource between the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lake Charles offices.

Champion’s Baton Rouge group maintains certified professionals, including a Project Management Professional, a certified Siemens PCS7 engineer, and a Professional Engineer (PE). Baton Rouge’s engineers are experts in designing and implementing complex control systems with a concentration in all major DCS platforms such as Honeywell, DeltaV, Foxboro, Yokogawa and ABB. PLC and SCADA applications are also a big portion of the office’s projects which include Allen-Bradley, Modicon and Siemens platforms. To complement this work, the Baton Rouge automation group has trained personnel with SIS applications with such platforms as Triconex, HIMA, and DeltaV SIS.

In addition to these projects, the Baton Rouge automation group is currently leading efforts to implement a company-wide Virtual Machine solution and developing equipment to streamline and optimize project testing and demonstrations through the use of customized test panels.

Not only does the Baton Rouge group focus on delivering high quality solutions to all customers, the group is also involved with community service activities outside the office. Recently, the group donated gifts to a family of four who lost their home just before Christmas and gave time to volunteer at a local Live 2 Serve event. Baton Rouge team members are also involved in activities such as summer sports leagues, volleyball, softball, bowling, and trivia.

Champion’s Baton Rouge business center office by the numbers (since 2011):

BY STATE

BY CUSTOMER

BY INDUSTRY

TYPE

LA – 93%

Westlake Vinyls Company LP – 14%

Chemical – 46%

Jan 2011 – March 2015

OK – 3%

Motiva Enterprises LLC – 14%

Oil & Gas – 29%

Fixed Fee – 43%

AR – 2%

Boardwalk Louisiana Midstream – 8%

Transportation & Storage – 12%

T&M (including Service Calls) – 57%

AIL – 1%

Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC – 5%

Manufacturing – 5%

April 2013 – March 2015

 NC, Gulf of Mexico, TX combined – 2%

Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC – 5%

Coke Calcining – 2%

 Fixed Fee – 58%

 CA, KS, NM, PA, VA combined – 1%

BP Lubricants USA Inc. – 4%

Utilities – 2%

 T&M – 23%

 

84 Others – Remaining 50%

 

 Service Calls – 19%

Lake Charles Office Overview

Champion opened its Lake Charles office on October 13th, 2005. The physical location of the office is in Sulphur, LA, about eight miles west of Lake Charles. Champion’s Lake Charles automation group grew quickly, and after moving locations twice, the office now resides in its third building. The first location was a 400-square-foot office, the second was a 2,000-square-foot office, and the current is a 10,000-square-foot building with 6,000 square feet of office space and 4,000 square feet dedicated to panel fabrication and our UL listed panel shop.

The Lake Charles office consists of 29 employees. The automation group includes 17 automation engineers, one project manager, two on the estimation team, two administration personnel, and two employees in a supervisory or management role. In addition to the automation group, the Lake Charles office also has three manufacturing technicians in the panel shop and two design team members.

At the Lake Charles office, 40% of the automation group employees have been with Champion for more than five years.

Champion’s Lake Charles engineers have extensive knowledge in the implementation of complex control systems as well as historians, historian migrations, programming for batch and blending processes, and ingredient tracking with material management software.

The majority of Champion’s Lake Charles engineers’ expertise is with Allen-Bradley platforms. Additionally, the Lake Charles engineering professionals work with various Siemens automation products, and our Siemens knowledge base is continually increasing. Champion’s Lake Charles office also has one certified Siemens PCS 7 engineer. We have completed numerous projects with DCS systems such as Siemens PCS 7, DeltaV, and Honeywell, and the Champion Lake Charles automation group is currently focusing on expanding the DCS applications and projects within the office..

Champion’s Lake Charles office by the numbers (since 2011):

BY STATE

BY CUSTOMER

BY INDUSTRY

TYPE

LA – 50%

Phillips 66 – 12%%

Chemical – 24%

Fixed Fee – 76%

TX – 33%

US Army Corp – 9%

Government – 13%

T&M – 12%

GA – 5%

Sherwin Alumina – 8%

Oil & Gas – 13%

Service Calls – 12%

IL – 4%

Halliburton – 6%

Trans & Storage – 13%

 

 MN – 2%

EnLink – 5%

Metals – 12%

 

 OK – 2%

AWC Beaumont – 4%

Sub-Contracts – 10%

 

 CA – 2%

Rain CII – 3%

 Calcined Coke – 3%