Know What Business You are Really In

February 8, 2010

During this economic down turn every business is being challenged to review the way they do business and that is a good thing. Those that meet the challenge will be all the better for it and well positioned when things turn around.

There is a lot of dialog going on in regards to initiatives companies can take. This makes great for white papers and consulting fees.  The answer is really quite basic. Business management 101 says to identify what business you are really in, how that market needs to be served, and then how well you and your competitors are positioned to serve that market.

I like to share with you a classic example of a company that did not recognize what business they were in, Heller Aller of Napoleon Ohio. Up to the early 50’s, yes I can remember that far back, every farm had a Heller Aller windmill to pump their deep wells. The Rural Electrification Act eventually brought electric service to out lying areas and farmers were converting their windmills to be actuated with electric motors.

While they saw their business drop, Heller Aller failed to realize that they were in the deep well pump business not windmills. Eventually their customers were only a handful of remote ranches and some foreign countries. Eventually in the early 1990’s they no longer were.

EXAIR corporation produces products that blow, cool, vacuum, and transfer material. We understand that these products use compressed air and that compressed air in not cheap. Therefore our focus is not on the function of these products but performing that function with the least amount of compressed air. Extensive testing and design enables our products to deliver as much a 40 times more volume of air than the volume of compressed used. I have many customers that have been able to shut down a compressor just by retrofitting all their blow offs with EXAIR engineered nozzles.

Our core business is engineered compressed air products that conserve compressed air and we continue to expand our offerings. Visit us at www.exair.com

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanfalone@exair.com

Leave a Comment » | Air Amplifier, Air Knife, Air Wipe, Cabinet Cooler, Compressed Air Optimization, Industrial Housekeeping, Industrial Safety Air Guns, Line Vac, Static Elimination, Super Air Nozzle, Vacuum Generators, Vortex Tubes | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by japanfalone

Where and Why a Super Air Knife?

February 4, 2010

Look around your plant for these air saving and maintenance saving opportunities which are well suited for a Super Air Knife.

Do you have long manifolds with multiple nozzles installed on it? Such manifolds are large air hogs and Super Air Knives can typically cut the air consumption by more than half. Have you calculated the air consumption of your large manifold?

Look for simple pipes with holes drilled in them. These pipes generally have a number of qualities which a Super Air Knife will improve; the first is lowering air consumption, the second is lowering noise levels, the third os providing and OSHA safe blow off. Have you been visited by OSHA yet?

Any wide area blow off application could benefit from a Super Air Knife. Typical wide areas include webs of all different materials as paper, metals, plastic films and wood among others. The Super Air Knife is available from stock in lengths up to 96″ but are made even longer per request.

Also applications where space is limited. Aluminum Super Air Knives have a dimensional profile of 1.75″ (45mm) x 1.44″ (37mm) with the stainless steel version even smaller. And by running from compressed air, 1/4 NPT connections dictate a small supply line when compared to a blower option. Are you having trouble providing a blow off in a cramped space?

So there is a few examples of where you can look for Super Air Knife opportunities. Here are a few reasons why you should use a Super Air Knife, some of which have been mentioned briefly.

A Super Air Knife is the most efficient compressed air knife on the market today, with superior flow characteristics of any competitors knife it consumes the least amount of air.

They are OSHA safe for noise. Super Air Knife is incredibly quiet. It produces 69 decibel at 80 PSIG of inlet pressure. Generally not even noticed in your typical industrial environment.

They are OSHA safe for pressure; engineered to meet the OSHA dead-end pressure standard 29CFR-1910.242(b). This means the exhaust air is below 30 PSIG and cannot be dead ended which both avoid potential harm to staff.

EXAIR Super Air Knives are LOW maintenance, no filters, no bearings, no large footprint and no large duct work to mess with like with blower operated air knives. Once Super Air Knives are in stalled, the compressed air filter/separator is all you need to look at, typically replacing the filter element (which we stock) at 6 month intervals.

So keeps you ears and eyes open for loud and large blow off applications in your plant. EXAIR will help reduce both your consumption and noise levels.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwardS@exair.com

Leave a Comment » | Air Knife | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by kaedwards

Are you ready for some good news?

February 3, 2010

Unless you have your head buried under 3 feet of dirt, you are bound to hear all the bad news about the world economy, natural disasters, wars in foreign lands and un-rest in populations around the world. It seems when it comes to bad news it seems you can never get away from it. When there is good news, it seems to quickly get pushed aside for the former.

I’d like to bring to your attention some of the good news we were able to share with folks recently on various applications that make people’s lives easier or increase the productivity of their operation to a level they have never seen before.

One example is the guy who contacted me about his application to remove ethylene-glycol from his test fixture and needed a good way to do it neatly and quickly, so we introduced him to our Reversible Drum Vac system. He was amazed that he could even install a smaller diameter hose to get down into the small areas of the test fixture to remove the fluid.

Another customer needed to blow the debris from her thermoformed parts that was left over from a routing operation. The draw on the thermoformed part was up to 16 inches deep! And so she needed some hard-hitting Ion Air Jets  she could mount on to the end of her robot arm to manipulate around the part to clean things up a bit.

A third customer contacted me from Malaysia and needed to find a way to change the resin in his water softener system. The tanks were quite large and required staff to enter inside and scoop out the resin beads. Now they just connect a 2″ Line Vac up to some conveying hose and can clean the entire tank in a matter of about 2 hours. Previously, it would take all day to make the change.

At EXAIR, we work with customers all over the world to solve industrial application problems with our compressed air operated products. In most places around the world, we have local distributors who can help you on a more local and personal basis. If you are in need of help with your application, please contact us at EXAIR and we can either help you directly from here or through a local distributor.

Help is on the way!  How is that for some good news?

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com

Leave a Comment » | Industrial Housekeeping, Line Vac, Static Elimination | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by ndraker

Safety – Sign Sign Everywhere a Sign

February 2, 2010

I was listening to an oldies station and the song Signs by the Five Man Electrical Band came on. The lyrics went like this:

                Sign Sign everywhere a sign
                Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind
               Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign

In the days of my youth when that song was popular, I related to that message. The irony is that as my age group matured and entered the work force, we perpetuated the proliferation of signs.

I recently bought a snow blower plastered with warning labels; do not stick hand here, check oil before starting, do not fill when hot, yada yada yada. So why the need for all the warning labels? Have we become a brainless society incapable of using our better judgement or have we become so litigious that manufacturers need to protect themselves? I suspect the latter because some of these labels are obvious.

Be that as it may, there are some instances where folks tamper with products thinking they can override design parameters to get better performance. Remember the show “Home Improvement” with Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor? He consistently got himself into trouble tampering with things. I recently ran into an issue with one of my customers who removed a safety pop-off valve thinking he could get more performance. He was lucky he did not hurt himself.

So where is the common ground between excessive signage and common sense? I believe it is in employee safety training. Training your employees to work and live safely will mitigate lost time workplace accidents as well as lost time due to home accidents.

A monthly safety newsletter sent to your employees via email or inserted in their pay envelope is an easy way to get the message out. It should highlight everyday situations that could pose potential accidents. Encouraging your employees to submit  situations that they have observed is a good way to get them involved and part of the process.

Safety is nothing more than thinking ahead of your actions and considering what consequences could result. Defensive driving if you may. Little things like unmarked containers can result in disastrous results. I had a neighbor who cleaned his paint brushes in gasoline and left the container on the workbench. His son was cleaning out the garage and had a burn pile out back. Two wrongs; an unmarked container and not checking to what was in the can resulted in sending his son to the burn unit.

Compressed air is an indispensable energy source. But when improperly used, it can cause physical harm.  EXAIR stays focused on providing compressed air products that not only conserve compressed air, but also provide increased safety to the operator.

Noise in the workplace can severely damage one’s hearing. Therefore the overwhelming majority of EXAIR products perform well below the OSHA sound directive. High pressure compressed air can penetrate the skin introducing air into the blood stream resulting in a fatal embolism. Therefore all EXAIR products are designed so that they do not exceed the OSHA directive of 30 PSI dead-end pressure. Our engineered nozzles can meet this directive without sacrificing performance. If you have questions on these products feel welcomed to call and ask for one of our application engineers. 1-800-903-9247

So until my next weeks blog – Be safe and act defensively.

 Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanflaone@exair.com

Leave a Comment » | Compressed Air Optimization | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by japanfalone

« Previous Entries