Watlow® is a global industrial technology company that uses its world-class engineering expertise, advanced thermal systems and manufacturing excellence to provide an array of temperature controllers, power controllers, heating technologies and temperature sensing platforms. In 2022, they acquired Eurotherm® and can now offer its premium products including PID temperature controllers, recorders and data acquisition capabilities, solid state relays and power controllers, software and systems. Together with Eurotherm, Watlow brings experience to a variety of industries including semiconductor, energy and environmental technologies, medical, glass, clinical, analytical and life sciences, to name a few.
Since 1922, Watlow has grown in product capability, market experience and global reach. The company holds more than 1,000 patents and employs more than 4,200 team members working in 13 manufacturing centers and seven advanced technology and development centers in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Watlow covers 95 countries through sales and distribution offices around the world.
The company’s solutions consist of a wide range of electric resistive heaters, sensors and process controllers and data acquisition devices. Their advanced thermal technology is found in industries such as semiconductor processing, medical devices, traditional and sustainable energy systems, life sciences and advanced heat treating systems – wherever thermal is critical.
Interview with Johann Lainer, Marketing Communications Manager at Watlow.
Easy Engineering: Which are the most sold products / solutions?
Johann Lainer:
- Electric heaters, sensors, controllers for different kind of industries. Mostly semiconductor.
- Electric resistive heaters – metal sheath such as cartridge and tubular heaters; flexible heaters made from special rubber and cloth materials and specialty heaters made from advanced ceramics, polyimide films and thermal coatings
- Sensors including thermocouples, RTDs, thermistors and fiber optic
- Industrial controllers – temperature, power, multifunction, PLCs
- Data management – data recorders, analyzers, PID controllers, SCADA
E.E: What are clients looking for when they want to buy products / solutions from your range?
J.L: High quality, a complete thermal system, long experience, decarbonized solutions to support their green journey, meeting compliance requirements, smart solutions/I4.0…
Solutions that meet their needs, that are easy to use and are available with a short lead time.
E.E: On which aspects should clients focus when deciding to buy a product / solution?
J.L: Thermal systems can be complex and underappreciated. Clients should buy from companies that can draw from a long and enduring history of experience from a broad array of industries and applications. Very often, the underlying technology from one application can be utilized to provide the right solution for another.
E.E: Tell us a short buying guide for clients who want to purchase your products / solutions?
J.L: Depending on what the customer’s perspective is, they can start on our Product Selector page on Watlow.com. This tool was designed to guide customers through the selection process through a series of simple questions such as, “what are they trying to heat? What is the temperature they are trying to attain and for how long, etc…? By answering these questions, customers are guided to products that will meet their needs. As they advance through this process real-time feedback is provided through a product diagram that continually adjusts to the various feature decisions that are made. The session concludes with a configuration summary providing all the information needed to place and order – a part number, product illustration with dimensions, contact information for ordering and a list price.
E.E: What should clients know when they plan to upgrade their existing solutions?
J.L: They need to know a little bit about their own application (operating temperatures, thermal cycling, ambient conditions, etc.). They also need to be clear on what it is they are hoping to achieve in terms of their own process outputs (increased capacity, better productivity, energy savings, space reduction, etc.). All these factors go into upgrade decisions.
E.E: Why do clients choose your products / solutions over other existing on the market?
J.L: Watlow has been in the thermal systems business for more than 100 years. If something needs to be heated, there is a good chance that we have seen it or done it before. This experience, and a long-standing reputation for quality, enables customers to place a great deal of trust in their partnership with Watlow. Additionally, our sales force is unique in that all sales representatives are degreed engineers qualified to work with customers to design solutions for all their thermal needs.
E.E: What sets your products / solutions apart? What innovative / special features do they have?
J.L: We go to market with the full thermal loop in mind. While many of our competitors can provide discrete components (heaters, sensors or controllers), few can offer all three that are designed and optimized from the ground up to operate in conjunction with one another. This vertically integrated approach has allowed us to offer innovative solutions around a technology architecture called Adaptive Thermal Systems® or ATS™. ATS enabled systems can adapt to their environment through advanced materials and controller algorithms that perform at a higher level of precision when compared to traditional discrete components.
E.E: Tell us some tips & tricks that clients can use when searching to buy your products / solutions?
J.L: We offer a help section on our website called Tech Tips. Customers can review or search Tech Tips to find articles and “how to” information to assist them in product selection. Additionally, there are several engineering tools and calculators that are also available to provide technical guidance. Other tools and articles are available on Watlow.com within the “Resources and Support” section.
E.E: What products / solutions are you going to launch next year?
J.L: As a private company we do not publicly share our new product introductions until we are much closer to the launch window. What we can share is that our product road maps are aggressive, and we intend to introduce several new exciting controls products next year as our integration with Eurotherm® accelerates.