HOW SMARTTRACE- EHT’s HEAT TRACE MONITORING SOFTWARE CAME TO LIFE

EHT Group Ltd. is an organization with industry knowledge going back over a decade, and a rapidly expanding client base across North America, and with their SmartTrace- heat trace monitoring software, you can revolutionize your entire heat trace process.

Launched in 2018, EHT Group specializes in every aspect of the electric heat trace systems used to push processes through pipes. With over a decade of experience maintaining and commissioning heat trace systems, and working for an representing owners, electrical contractors and trainers- the idea to create a more streamlined solution was apparent. Co-Founders and brothers Conor and Cian Howitt created EHT Group. This has resulted in an organization that not only understands heat trace inside out, but could revolutionize the entire process. 

 

Both Cian and Conor have extensive experience working in the  gas industry where they performed electrical heat tracing for Suncor, one of the largest oil and gas producers in Canada. They spent over a decade building up their heat trace mastery at various organizations. While providing valuable services moving from site to site to fix heat trace systems, they both wanted to take that impact a step farther, and attack electric heat trace problems on a larger scale. 

 

“We really wanted to say, ‘Hey, what can we do to impact as many facilities as possible?’ That was one of our drivers for starting a company,” Cian says. “I think we both think alike in that way, and we really wanted to use our experience to have a widespread impact.” 

 

EHT Group has already started with this impact in a major way, with their SmartTrace software solution. The software monitors and manages the heat trace systems of client facilities, by analyzing multiple datasets related to those systems. From there all of the data is readily available for human analysis and decision-making. As well, facility members receive alarms for any pressing heat trace issues.  

 

“What SmartTrace is really doing is tying into operational data, into the heat trace controllers and into different systems, and then giving facilities a really clear view on the health of their heat trace system,” Conor explains. The software diagnoses this health by examining several elements: process data, scheduling systems, and even weather data gleaned from weather patterns crunched by machine learning algorithms.  

 

Smart Trace’s capabilities look to current heat trace monitoring practices the way a Lamborghini looks next to a horse and cart. “It’s crazy when you talk about what facilities think is normal, and what they think is acceptable for what heat trace should cost to manage and maintain,” Conor says. “What they’re doing is using Excel sheets, and then it’s somebody behind those Excel sheets that are making decisions,” Conor says, referring to current approaches. “The biggest win with SmartTrace is using customers’ data to make data-driven decisions, and we take out all the human error.” 

 

 The result is that facility managers have a much clearer lay of the heat trace land. “It’s very confusing … or overwhelming  for facilities, when you’re like, ‘I’ve got 1000 alarms, is my facility at risk? We don’t know what to do with it!” What SmartTrace does is, it takes all that information and compares it with other relative data sources,” Cian says.  As well, due to the highly variable nature of the internal processes between sites, the onboarding process for SmartTrace is always tailored to make the integration of the software into facility systems as seamless as possible. 

 

In addition to helping facilities make more informed decisions, The benefits from that overhaul and other offerings from EHT Group are exponentially more effective energy usage on site. 

Conor says, “one problem we see is that heat tracing gets turned on more than necessary. He refers to this effect as forced-on heat tracing, which EHT Group tracks regularly as part of their heat trace facility audits. One such audit revealed that a company was forcing on an alarming amount of heat tracing, because the heat trace controllers weren’t programmed correctly.” 

Conor continues,  “we ended up saving them approximately 790 megawatt hours of electricity. And this is a site that doesn’t generate their own electricity,” Conor says. “We equated it to about $130,000 worth of cost savings that they paid just for the electricity to keep these heat trace circuits forced on, that didn’t need to be forced on.” 

 

While the SmartTrace system is a substantial part of EHT Group’s operations, the company also retains the human expertise element of helping with heat trace processes. That expertise comes from those heat trace audits of facilities, and from team members assigned to facilities to help with other issues. “SmartTrace is not a solution that we put into a site and then walk away,” Conor says.  

“SmartTrace will take in all the information, make all the decisions, but we assign people to work with a facility for any other sort of heat tracing needs,” Cian adds. “Whether it’s technical resources, training of their electrical departments, working with operations, if they’ve got a question about something that comes up, we do provide all of that.” 

 

With the operations of EHT Group being a combination of fieldwork, project planning and engineering, the Howitt brothers have both leaned on their qualifications and training as technology professionals. Cian’s status as a C.E.T. and Conor’s P.Tech. designation have amply equipped them for both the office and the field.  

 

“The technologist program in general, I’ve always been proud to be a part of it, like that sort of weird blend of field or operation maintenance, experience with the engineering know-how,” Cian says. “I still love going to the field and understanding how things work, and the very practical approach, which, in my opinion, that’s a lot of what the technologist role is.” 

 

EHT Group is showing no signs of slowing in their rocket trajectory. As the company expands their services and software across North America, more pipes will stay intact, meaning more chemicals stay safely flowing through them. If you are interested in more information regarding SmartTrace and our heat monitoring software, connect with us.