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From “Passive Response” to “Proactive Early Warning” – Sinochem New News On December 11, the Second National Petrochemical Valve Application Technology Conference and the 2025 China (Suzhou) Valve Users’ Ecosystem and Technological Innovation Application Forum were held in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. Experts attending the meeting noted that, as the \"industrial joints\" of the petrochemical industry, valves are enabling the sector to shift from \"passive response\" to \"proactive early warning\" through intelligent upgrades, thereby ensuring production safety and improving operational efficiency. Zhao Junsong, a group management expert at China National Petroleum Corporation, pointed out that valves are crucial for the safe and stable operation of production in the petrochemical industry. Among the unplanned shutdowns that have occurred in China’s petroleum refining and processing industry in recent years, about 40% are directly related to valve failures; there is an urgent need to employ intelligent methods to enable early risk detection. “We should advance valve management from the traditional ‘reactive maintenance’ approach to a new stage of ‘predictive maintenance’. ”Yu Shiheng, a senior engineer at Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Co., Ltd., introduced a solution that uses intelligent controllers to achieve early warning of valve failures and predictive protection. Taking Emerson’s Fisher DVC7K as an example, it can automatically diagnose about 80% of common faults, enabling predictive maintenance and effectively preventing unplanned downtime. Yu Shiheng also called on the industry to jointly establish a database of failures, improve the collection of data on the reliability of instruments and valves, and provide data support for intelligent systems. “As regulatory requirements continue to tighten, the application of intelligent self-diagnosis technologies for safety-critical equipment such as emergency shut-off valves will become increasingly widespread, serving as the foundation for achieving intelligent production in the petrochemical industry. ”said Lin Rong, deputy chief engineer of Sinopec Engineering Construction Co., Ltd. Meanwhile, several experts present at the meeting told reporters that the implementation of intelligent control valves still faces challenges. Wei Yi, a senior engineer at the Beijing branch of China Global Engineering Co., Ltd., pointed out that there are still three major challenges to the implementation of intelligent control valves at present: first, the computing power at the terminal level is insufficient, and it does not support terminal intelligence ； Second, data transmission technology is complex and slow ； Third, current safety instrument-related standards do not support the implementation of intelligent instruments and network transmission. How to solve these problems? Chen Yanfeng, co-founder of Jingyan Group and deputy secretary-general of the Petrochemical Committee of the Chinese Association of Automation, believes that the establishment of relevant standard systems should serve as a starting point. He pointed out that over the next 5 years, three technological trends—the widespread adoption of intelligent valves, innovative breakthroughs in new materials, and the upgrading of green standards—will reshape the industry ecosystem. The sector should establish alliances related to domestic valves in order to promote the creation of unified design and quality standards, thereby ensuring true autonomy and control over valve production. Lv Yuhu, deputy dean of the Valve Industry College at Kaifeng University, discussed the role of universities in promoting deeper collaboration among government, industry, academia, research institutions, and end-users to facilitate the transformation of the valve industry toward intelligence and higher-end development. The institute has partnered with leading enterprises in the industry to develop an education model that links classrooms with workshops and synchronizes teaching with production, aiming to cultivate versatile talents with both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. It is hoped that in the future, training bases can be established in collaboration with enterprises to support the development and implementation of core technologies in this industry. This conference was hosted by Jingyan (Beijing) Chemical Engineering Research Institute Co., Ltd., with over 370 enterprises participating in the exchanges.