Connectivity Specialists HMS Nominated for Award at WWEM 2022

To listen to this interview, click here.

At this year’s Water, Wastewater and Environmental Monitoring (WWEM) conference in Telford, a number of awards were given out for excellence in various aspects of water monitoring. To learn a little more about their products, partnerships and why they came to WWEM, EnvirotechOnline took a walk around the exhibition floor to talk to some of the nominees. 

On HMS’ stand, we caught up with Bill Killick, Central Technical Sales Manager at HMS, about two of their most unique products, the HMS Communicator and the Netbiter, both of which were nominated for Most Innovative, Product or Digital Solution. First, we heard a little about the HMS Communicator. 

“Well, I like to say that this is a non-networked device’s ticket to the biggest industrial party! It’s for all of the devices that perhaps talk something like serial, but they don’t talk a major industrial protocol like ethernet IP or modbus tcp that most programmable logic controllers (PLCs) are talking. They [these devices] sit somewhere say in the corner of a factory or in this case it’s a valve in a wet place and someones got to manually go and do something or have an electric circuit-board that does a control system. As soon as you give it network capability to talk to a PLC, it opens up the whole world of connectivity. That is the massive benefit of this product. 

So, what about the Netbiter? 

‘The Netbiter gathers information from any kind of PLC, input/output device (I/O), or remote terminal unit (RTU), operating under RS485, collects that together, sends it to a cloud, to alarms, does dashboarding, sends that on to other clouds. It provides a really quick, easy way of seeing what’s happening to that device, and it can be done remotely. For instance, in one case, 17 hydroelectric plants all over Scotland were connected and the Netbiter enabled them to have at their fingertips all of their data, everything that’s happening. It’s a very quick and easy fix. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so popular.” 

It’s interesting to consider that, so far, we have barely hinted at the subject of water monitoring, despite the fact that HMS have been nominated for an award at a water monitoring conference. When asked about why HMS wanted to exhibit at WWEM, Bill clarifies this and in doing so, giving us an interesting perspective on the value of the conference. 

“We see ourselves as a different kind of offering to most of the exhibitors, here. Most are either in the analytics bin, or the sensor bin, or offer very detailed chemical analysis, you know, something like that. We are a sweet shop for connectivity. Some people might have sensors, other people might have clouds, other people have requirements for quick and easy access to data or digitalisation – we offer the in-between bit that oils the way.  

So, what we’re doing, really, is seeing what interest there is, here, to talk to those people that are interested, to talk to exhibitors, not in terms of selling, but just finding out what’s happening with the industry. Then, we can better target what we’re offering. And HMS does a lot of acquisition, too, so it’s always interested in who’s here and what can be done with that. 

We’ve got a speaker at the conference, also. I’ve just been to another talk and found out loads of information, and made loads of good connections. So, WWEM is not just about the footfall on the stand, it’s about a whole load of other benefits. That’s why we’re here.” 

In 2024, WWEM will return bigger and better, graduating to the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham. For information on exhibiting at WWEM 2024, click here.