The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (for Sports Fans)

September 2, 2010 — exairbp

Don’t you love this time of year?  Kids are returning to school.  And the sports calendar is about to explode.  I was thinking about this over the last week or so.  Things are about to get really, really hectic.

  • Here in Ohio, high school football has begun.  My son is a senior this year, so we are all hoping for a winning and memorable year (that is injury-free).  Friday (and sometimes Saturday) nights are spent under the lights with a few thousand close friends.
  • College football kicks off tonight for many teams.  Ohio State vs. Marshall will get particular interest here at EXAIR.  Remember the old days when colleges played on Saturdays?  Thanks to conference agreements with the various television networks, college football is now spread over 4 or 5 days per week.
  • Pro football kicks off next weekend, but until then, we have Hard Knocks (where’s Revis?), fantasy team drafts (here’s a great take from Jim Rome), and office pools to arrange (wait, scratch that, it’s illegal).  Again, thanks to TV, there are games on Sunday, Monday and the occasional Thursday.
  • Baseball pennant races are coming down the stretch (has anyone seen the Cardinals lately?).  Everyone plays at least six days a week for the next month.

There are so many choices, so many options, and so many things to watch and/or attend that it really can be overwhelming.  I know our family calendar is littered with commitments over the next couple of months.

With life, just like in business, you have to set priorities and stay organized if you are going to achieve your goals.  As busy as the leisure/social/personal calendar seems to be these days, we’ve been even busier at EXAIR.

In the past month, here are a few things that have been going on at EXAIR:

  • We visited our distributors in China and Singapore
  • Our distributor from China visited EXAIR
  • We officially launched our partnership with a new distributor in Norway
  • We press released our new, larger, 110-gallon Chip Trapper
  • We press released our one-of-a-kind line of PVDF Super Air Knives
  • We launched our new video demo for EXAIR Line Vac Air Operated Conveyors

And the days and weeks ahead won’t be any less hectic:

  • EXAIR will announce three new products next week
  • EXAIR will have two more press releases in September for new products
  • EXAIR will also have more major announcements regarding compliance in September
  • EXAIR will host our distributor from the Netherlands next week
  • EXAIR will once again compete for Plant Engineering “Product of the Year” honors

On top of all of that, several members of the EXAIR team will be attending the IMTS 2010 trade show in Chicago in a couple of weeks.  If you are going to be there and would like to discuss an application, e-mail us so that we can pre-arrange the meeting.

As you can see, both sides of the ledger are quite full these days, and that is not a bad thing at all.

Bryan Peters
President
bryanpeters@exair.com

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Passing Time – It Ages Us All

August 31, 2010 — exairwest

It is interesting to watch the annual ritual of students returning to school and their studies – whether it be Kindergarten to college campuses. It is a reminder for all of us about the passing of time.

Another reminder of the passing of time for me this year was EXAIR hiring the first batch of new employees with their birth dates in the decade of the 1990s.
Our growing business required increasing the workforce. We brought on a group of new people over the summer, several of them whose ages are less than the length of service of some EXAIR employees. EXAIR is approaching its 27th anniversary later this year. Our employees represent a diverse group of people and generations. Every decade from the 1930’s to the 1990’s is represented by our employee’s birthdates.

This mixture makes for an amusing exchange of ideas and comments. Some of our “young” employees are now realizing that they are twice the age of their co-workers. Conversely, I just overheard a 20 year-old guy telling his co-worker –“I am just like a young puppy, running around, yapping at the legs of an old dog like you”. The old dog he was referring to is 28 years old.
We work to get our internal communications across to our employees as much as we have had to adapt our marketing messages to our broad range of customers.

We are all passing through this life at the same rate – minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day. Some people seem in a hurry to end the journey – such as drunk drivers, texting while driving, hunting with John Cheney – while others seem determined to make it last as long as they can by being late for everything.

Everyone needs to try to enjoy the journey as much as they can, through their friends, hobbies and social activities, and work experiences. There is no rewind button on the life cycle.

Personally, I’m opting for the slow lane – I am having too much fun.

BTW –Next time you call in to talk to an Application Engineer – ask them how old they are in “Co-op years”. (“Co-op years” – one co-op year is equal to a 20 year-old engineering student from the University of Cincinnati)

Bob West
Chief Financial Officer
bobwest@exair.com

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This is no Behavior for Going Back to School

August 25, 2010 — Kirk Edwards

Today is the last day of summertime freedom for my kids, school begins tomorrow. It is no longer OK to not know what time it is or sleep until 9:00 or 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning. No more sleeping in a basement fort on a Wednesday night. The daily events and zoo camp and vacation have all been recorded. The excitement created by the ice cream truck is gone…

But my kids are showing no signs of changing their behavior. They spent all day running around with the neighbors with no sense of responsibility for what was upon them. And more power to ‘em…carpe diem!

Here are the creatures which greeted me when I got home, in no less-than eight containers from aquariums to bug habitats to jars with holes in the lids: Three big wood bees, two butterflies, one moth, one giant grasshopper, two little green grasshoppers, mating bugs, crickets, a red and black beetle, assorted dead bugs, one cicada and two cicada shells.

 

All in a days work - click for larger image

Along with the creatures were five kids. Four of whom struck me as quite loud compared to hearing co-worker volume levels all day. The fifth was merely quiet due to the kid tribe pecking order of speaking and his inability to shout anything bug related before I put the hush down on the unruly group of entomologists. I found myself thinking if they could only shout out the genus and species of these crawly creatures, they may be on their way to a worthwhile skill. Though I did hear a kid say “we know it’s a moth because it has those feathery antennae and he’s fat”.

I was also pleased that no one inquired further about the mating bugs, regardless of a clear “the birds and the bees” environment (though telling a kid to go ask her mother about it isn’t quite as hard as I make it out to be).

It also struck me that it is a good call to begin school on a Thursday, these kids clearly need a couple of days to adjust their behavior and wrap their heads around a whole week of school. You just don’t say goodbye to summer the same way you greet it - kids spend weeks daydreaming of summer so they greet it like an old friend with whom no time has lapsed and get right into action. They say goodbye with kicking and dragging feet, composing themselves only after it is no longer visible.

As “grown-ups” we can be happy we don’t have to make that slap in the face adjustment, but not so much that we wouldn’t enjoy a couple months off work. It is a slighter adjustment to move out of Cabinet Cooler system season and closer to Static Eliminator season during colder, drier weather ahead. But our kids will find that out soon enough. I am sure none of them is willing to give up that slap in the face adjustment at the end of summer in return for a job. Besides, at some near point in time I will arrive home to frustrated home-working kids and my seize the day opportunity to learn about feathery, fat moths will have been recorded as well.

Here’s to an easy transition back to school kids. Enjoy yourselves.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
KirkEdwards@EXAIR.com
http://twitter.com/exair_ke

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The Cold Gun Really Does Work!

August 13, 2010 — bdfarno

“The High Power Cold Gun really does work!”  That’s a statement a customer I spoke with recently told me during a phone conversation.   Our catalog and flyer had come across his desk many years ago and he had just passed it by like it was another piece of junk mail.   Well when his application suddenly went from being able to use liquid coolant to having to cut dry, his cycle times and process times greatly increased.  He searched for a solution to the problem he was seeing and the tooling manufacturers were trying different coatings and his operators were trying to get him to reprogram the part.  He knew there was a way to avoid all of these recommendations but could not find it.  Until, he was sitting at his desk and remembered seeing EXAIR on a piece of paper with an Aircoolant system.  He did a quick search on the internet and found our homepage. 

Once he was on our site he immediately found the Cold Gun Aircoolant System.  He ordered a 5330, a High Power Cold Gun System w/ two cold outlets.  When he got the unit in, he immediately hooked it to the machine and fixed the nozzle to dispense the cold air directly at his cutter contact area.   The part ran and for the first time since they had started running the process dry, the machine was cutting a good part at his old cycle time. 

The operators couldn’t understand it and the owner even had a hard time himself.   That was until the machine stopped and they felt how cold the air was coming out of the Cold Gun and they saw the finish on the part.  They put it on several different applications that were running into similar problems with surface finish and tool life and it proved to be a worthy tool for their production line.  

Recently, he had a business acquaintance contact him with a similar problem on a stainless steel milling application.   Our customer immediately recommended the Cold Gun to him and even gave him one from his own machine to try out. 

It is interactions like this that help us to succeed and we thank all of our customers for these interactions.  This is also how we are able to have a case study for every product we offer. 

This is just one of many customer applications that we have helped with over the years.  Our application index and case study files are yet another way that we are able to help our future and existing customers with their compressed air needs.   If you have an application you aren’t sure we have done before, please contact us and let us know.  If it hasn’t been tried before, we’ll do our best to help you find an EXAIR product to make it work.

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