Customer Trials Drive New Development of Titan’s Ultrasonic Drink Flowmeter

Titan Enterprises, a leading UK manufacturer of innovative flow measurement instruments, is crediting customer trials with driving the development of its latest product innovation – a low-cost ultrasonic drink flowmeter, specifically for use by OEMs of drink dispensing systems.

The new ultrasonic soft drink flowmeter was developed in response to a request from an OEM within the drinks dispensing market. It had to fulfill a series of rigorous design specifications: no internal moving parts (to allow hygienic cleaning), small footprint, food-grade build, cost-effectiveness and simple integration into installed dispensing machines.

“This development project hasn’t been just about making a flowmeter – we’re solving an industry problem,” explains Neil Hannay, Senior Development Engineer at Titan Enterprises.

Building on their proven track record with turbine flowmeters in beverage applications, Titan explored how ultrasonic technology could deliver the same performance in a more compact and hygienic form – leading to the creation of this latest flow measurement solution.

A keystone of Titan's R&D strategy is direct customer collaboration. The creation of the new ultrasonic beverage meter – a member of the Atrato® family – illustrates how on-the-ground OEM testing impacts final design decisions.

“In laboratory testing, we have to make assumptions working on first principles with our expertise in flowmeter technology leading the way,” Neil continues. “We are not able to replicate a customer’s process, so customer testing is crucial in the development of a reliable, user-focused product that encompasses features that are important to the customer.”

This is where design concepts are actually pushed to their limits. It provides customers with the ability to judge the product in use and provide feedback on functionality, as well as ensure that the flowmeter will fit within their cost budget.

After in-house prototype testing, sets are dispatched to the OEM for in-situ testing. This stage generally identifies performance data not visible under lab testing. Field testing helps Titan to identify areas of greater fluid compatibility, mechanical stress endurance and protective components that ensure resistance at system failure or installation error.

“The iterative loop of feedback between our R&D team and the customer’s application environment is essential,” says Neil. “The goal is to refine both physical performance and system integration, ensuring our flowmeter not only works, but works exactly how and where it’s needed and within an acceptable price point.”

This collaborative strategy ensures that Titan's innovations are synchronised with real-world OEM requirements. It also enhances time to market by reducing rework and allowing the creation of application-specific flowmeter technologies.

Titan Enterprises invests more than three times the industry norm in R&D, ongoing to push the boundaries of ultrasonic flow measurement and application-specific OEM solutions for drink dispensing systems.

For more information about Titan Enterprises and their OEM product line, contact the team at sales@flowmeters.co.uk