MoistTech Corp., a global manufacturer of moisture measurement sensors and equipment, was first established in 2003 by John Fordham, director, and two fellow engineers. The company's headquarters are situated in Sarasota, FL, USA, which covers North and South America. MoistTech also has locations across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

MoistTech has designed sensors that are able to calculate measurements through the near-infrared region (NIR) of the electromagnetic spectrum, which accurately measures and controls moisture from lab to line. The company’s sensors are designed specifically to ensure accuracy and repeatability, and in addition, there is also no need to regulate temperature control, making for better ease of use.

President Adrian Fordham details the company’s successes and how it finds solutions to manufacturing challenges.

Q: To what do you attribute MoistTech’s success?
Fordham: Alongside aims to provide great customer service, MoistTech caters to a wide range of applications, providing moisture measurement sensors for use with animal and human foods to chemical applications, mineral, paper, renewable energies, textiles, tobacco and the wood industries. Through 40 years of expertise, MoistTech is leading the way in moisture measurements with its sensors adaptable for most any industry requiring moisture or thickness measurements within their manufacturing process.

The company’s growth has led to global recognition, and last year it achieved a winning milestone with 50,000 installations.

One of the most popular products is MoistTech’s IR3000. The IR3000 sensor offers excellent performance, with a strong reliable service that delivers stability, maintainability and controllability, producing the perfect solution for moisture maintenance. Applicable to a cross-sector of industries, its features make the IR3000 adaptable to a variety of material variations such as color, height of material and size, allowing the sensor to produce accurate readings regardless of material distinctions. It also can be used within the most extreme locations.

MoistTech’s success and constant advancements have allowed the company to become one of the country’s leading manufacturers within the industry. With much on the horizon in terms of expansion and future development, MoistTech aims to increase its worldwide presence and consolidate the already established success. Last year, the company attended a number of trade shows across Asia, North America, Europe and South America, where it showcased the uses and benefits of the newest near-infrared technology.

Q: What challenges do you see for manufacturers?
Fordham: Moisture is important in any manufacturing process, and excess moisture can ruin products. And what is worse than a wasted effort? Economical losses and decreased productivity. With continuous online moisture measurement, manufacturing/processing plants will find huge money savings. From savings in transportation due to weight of excess moisture, to savings in water usage for dust suppression and clean-up, plants also reduce the amount of wear and tear on equipment due to the dust and ash build up, and can prevent blockages on the conveyor resulting in shutting down the boiler.

Moisture measurement is critical in all aspects of the materials process. Therefore, manufacturing companies are constantly adjusting moisture to maintain the quality of their product. Advances in real-time sensing, data collection, and data analysis and interpretation help to determine the characteristics of the materials prior to processing, providing process efficiency and optimization.

Q: What do you believe are MoistTech’s competitive advantages?
Fordham: MoistTech’s state-of-the-art sensors use a single-source detector with no need for temperature regulation as with competitors. Our one-time calibration, no-drift design allows our performance to be unmatched along with the lowest amount of energy usage. MoistTech’s sensors are the most advanced with almost 16X the energy than our closest competitors with a much larger detection point, which in turn increases our accuracy level over a larger variation of distance or height. The standalone unit has no need for external signaling/processing box and can be run with or without the MoistTech software that comes standard with all sensors, including unlimited licensing usages.

About the author: Adrian Fordham has been MoistTech president since 2013, seeing it grow to more than 50,000 global installations. He can be reached at 941 727-1800 or by e-mail at info@moisttech.com.