Maintaining complex systems in the OEM industry can oftentimes be a challenge, particularly when something goes wrong that causes automatic systems to leak. This not only creates burdensome operational downtime, it drains economic resources — lost time means lost money. Historically OEMs have relied on control valves that are pneumatically actuated. But these systems have their drawbacks even when they do not require costly maintenance with lags in fluctuation response time and hazards that are built into the pneumatic technology itself.
A standard pneumatic actuator modulating valve control will generally only spend 20% of the time actually moving and modulating — sitting idle 80% of the time. In many application contexts, such as large corporate campuses, universities, and military bases, that require high-temperature hot water systems, a higher amount of energy expenditure is required to prevent overheated water. The implication here is that pneumatic systems require greater operational oversight to mitigate these risks manually. Greater oversight means both greater costs and a greater amount of labor time that could deviate from other urgent tasks.