My career started out in Instrumentation and when people would ask me what do I do? I would say that,
all plants have to know what's going on out there. There are instruments that tell them what, when, how, and we make sure those instruments are telling the truth. In instrumentation you have the CORE FOUR.
Piece of cake right? NOOOOO. They are so many different manufacturers that compete to be in your plant. When a unit is designed, the company/engineer will choose which company to use. Well I say that, most companies now have agreements with certain companies. Let's just say Valero makes an agreement with ABB to use all ABB products in a new unit, in return they will get some kind of discount and maybe free service reps for a period of time.
Valero will use ABB for most things but of course there are some things that either ABB does not make or there is just a perfect choice transmitter out there that the engineer wants to use. Such as a Micromotion Flow, or an Ohmart Vega radar level.
Now that you have instruments to measure the big four, you will need valves to control all of that. You will have valves that either open or close, control valves that will give you a presice flow, diverter valves and on and on and on.
