High on the list of things you'd rather not do: clean up liquid waste from an overflowing storage tank.

Avoiding this kind of mess is especially good when your business includes storing and disposing of liquid waste from industry and manufacturing.

That's the business Plummer's Environmental Services is in.

Along with a variety of other services—including hydro excavating, manhole rehabilitation, and emergency spill response—the Michigan-based company collects liquid waste from Midwest industrial and municipal customers, stores it, and treats it.

Researchers at Michigan State University Foundation's biotechnology research center rely on deionized (DI) water for their experiments.

But with a limited supply of DI water, they sometimes ran out before an experiment was completed.

Facilities Director Phil Hegge knew that the best solution was a costly upgrade to the center's ionization and filtration system. A low-cost temporary solution, however, was to give researchers up-to-the-minute data on the water supply. They could monitor the water level in the tank and know whether to reschedule an experiment.

In the Charter Township of Union, Michigan, staff used to have to travel to each equipment location to check on wells, pumping stations, and water treatment plants.

Wastewater Superintendent Michael Dearing and Chief Water Operator Shaun McBride added PCs running HMI software plus remote desktop software to view them, but it wasn't enough.

What they really wanted was a mobile solution to monitor even the smallest installations and check on key process indicators like flow, tank levels, and power consumption.

Mike Hake was watching the trends. He saw smartphones multiplying and his spare time at work shrinking—and he thought about how a phone interface to his equipment could save time.

Hake found his smartphone solution on OptoForums, where he read that operator interfaces built in groov run in a modern web browser on almost any smartphone.

Like most restaurants, That Bar-B-Q Place has a wide variety of systems worth automating, from refrigeration to fire alarms to security to TV menus—even to the barbecue smokers nicknamed "Jake" and "Elwood," shown at right.

But this restaurant also has an advantage: owner Dave Brosseau is an experienced systems integrator.

So when Brosseau wanted to give his staff the ability to monitor and control systems from inside the restaurant or in some cases remotely, he took a look at groov.

Gavin Gray knew from experience about the problems you can run into when you're trying to set up remote monitoring from a mobile interface.

When a water treatment client asked for mobile capability, he wasn't at all sure he wanted to spend the time. A busy integrator and machine builder, Gray had plenty of other work to do.

At Schipper Eggs in Holland, Michigan, automated feed mills used to run without supervision. But sometimes problems went unnoticed.

Now operators can remotely check status, control mills, and even change the mix of grains for the feed, using their smartphones.

Machinery such as pumps can be in places where you don't want to go—like the bottom of a stone quarry.

But monitoring and controlling them is still essential.

For Pennsylvania-based New Enterprise Stone & Lime Co. (NES&L), the answer to remote management for their pump control system was simple: groov.

We're hearing about all kinds of ways you're using groov HMIs.