The Pilot Group | Pilot Plants | Demo Plants

LEADERS IN CREATING PATHWAYS TO COMMERCIALIZATION FOR OVER TWO DECADES

SERVICES

Built in Canada - Our Pilot and Demonstration Plants and Modular Systems are Designed, Constructed and Assembled in Canada

Design and Engineering

The Pilot Group is part of the BCRI/NORAM/Axton family and brings together a multidisciplinary team of engineers and designers to support clients’ pilot or demonstration plant projects. The group’s expertise is in the engineering and design of pilot and demonstration plants. This expertise is honed and enhanced by the regular cross-training that staff receives on different key areas of technology commercialization. This broad experience is an important part of the group's success. The successful design of a pilot or demonstration plant hinges on important factors such as the interpretation and conversion of R&D data into practical design requirements or the careful consideration of “scalability” factors from bench-scale to pilot/demonstration/commercial plants. By choosing the Pilot Group, our engineers and designers can help your concept or technology grow to its full potential.

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Construction and Assembly

The Pilot Group has over 20 years of experience in the design and supply of pilot plants and demonstration plants. The Group's design of pilot plants and demonstration plants takes a modular approach, allowing the local construction and assembly of project systems before they are shipped to clients. As part of the commitment to quality, the whole construction phase of a pilot plant or demonstration plant is overseen by experienced members of the design team. Most modular designs are built at a close-by sister company Axton which is also part of our family of companies. Axton is a fabrication, machining, and assembly shop with a strong reputation, long history and a wide-range of accreditations (see http://www.axton.ca/accreditations.html). Smaller skid systems are typically assembled at our facility.

Pilot Plant Hosting and Operations

As an additional service, the Pilot Group hosts and operates clients’ pilot plants at its facility in Vancouver, Canada. Through the group’s on-going facility expansion, the group is featuring an infrastructure of 40,000 sq. ft. to support pilot plant operations. The facility includes laboratories, analytical room, machine shop, and offices for clients. The Pilot Group is ready to operate and maintain clients’ pilot plants while they are hosted at our facility.

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SERVICES

ABOUT

Pilot Group

The Pilot Group has been supplying pilot plants and demonstration plants for over 20 years to a wide range of industries. All engineering, construction and assembly work is done in Canada. The offices and pilot facilities are located in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Pilot Group has a multidisciplinary team of experts that strives to meet or exceed clients’ requirements. Our team’s objective is to work closely with clients to ensure that their pilot plants or demonstration plants provide the right data to allow moving projects into the next phase of the commercialization path.

ABOUT

WHY CHOOSE US?

The Right Design, The Right Solution

The Right Team, The Right Tools

The Pilot Group employs a team of experienced mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, and designers that ensure that every pilot plant or demonstration plant is designed and built to the highest standards. Through complementary multidisciplinary skills, the group can also offer clients a wide spectrum of additional technical support as part of the supply of a pilot or demonstration plant. As some examples, our team of chemical and mechanical engineers is well experienced in the design of diverse industrial unit operations, including reactors, heat exchangers, strippers and absorbers, distillation columns, extraction systems, cyclones, fluidized beds, filtration systems, etc. Our materials engineers are experienced in the selection of materials of construction for many applications in different industries. This wide experience is complemented with a strong project execution methodology and the right tools. Our team is proficient in the use of software packages such as Aspen, Hysis, ProFlow, Mathcad, Caesar, HTFS, NozzlePro, AutoCad, Solidworks, and AutoPlant.

The Right Experience

The Pilot Group has over two decades of experience in the design and supply of pilot plants and demonstration plants for diverse industries. This long history has led to a broad range of experience that clients can tap into and benefit from. Our experience extends to the operation of pilot plants and our exposure to the design of commercial scale plants. The latter experience provides clients with a team that takes careful consideration of key parameters and scale-up factors that will be important in the eventual commercialization of a process. The team's involvement in pilot plant operations also provides clients with valuable advice on the most efficient operating strategy for a particular pilot plant or demonstration plant. The ultimate objective is to work closely with clients to ensure that their pilot plants provide the right data to move projects into the next phase.

The Right Set Of Skills

The Pilot Group’s expertise is the design and assembly of pilot plants and demonstration plants. Through constant cross-training, skills and methodology are honed, leading to strong project execution and performance. Members of our group benefit from being regularly cross-trained at our family of companies: BC Research (R&D), Axton (fabrication, machining, assembly), and NORAM (engineering). This cross-training provides client's pilot plant or demonstration plant projects with a team of engineers and designers that can:

Properly interpret R&D data when designing a system.
Understand the fabrication limits and consequences of a proposed design.
Understand what data must be gathered from a pilot plant or demonstration plant to scale up a process or technology to full commercial size.

Our professionals set us apart, and their continuous training and improvements are key to our success.

DESIGN APPROACH

Why Leave It To Chance?

Every pilot plant, demonstration plant, or modular system, that our group supplies, follows a rigorous design approach. This design approach has been refined for over two decades, and it has at its core a stringent review process aimed at mitigating potential problems before construction and assembly begins. The process includes a vertically integrated approach from design through to commissioning, and well defined gate reviews for clients’ input along the way.

OUR PHILOSOPHY

Design Approach