Month: July 2010

Am I Old Enough to be Old Fashioned?

Published on by Kirk EdwardsLeave a comment

Clearly that question is relative. If you are my child the answer is yes, if you are my grandma the answer is no. Lets just say I am old enough to start asking the question.

It dawned on me the other day when I saw a commercial for a razor with 5 blades! No wonder I have a beard, my degenerate double-bladed razor probably just can’t keep up with my whiskers. Then it struck me…

  •  I own (and use) a VCR
  •  I still wear a watch
  •  Levis are my favorite jeans and one of only three brands I can name
  • I physically house over 600 CD’s, most of them released in the seventies (best music era ever and a topic for another day) or have dead people in the lineup
  • I wear my baseball hat with the bill straight forward
  • And I rely on a paper calendar to organize my personal activities

I can hear many of you now – You are just downright old, not to mention old fashioned. In my defense I do have an Ipod Touch and have recently begun to explore the calendar feature.

If it wasn’t for EXAIR my technological and digital media boundaries would still be stuck in the 80’s. Fortunately due to my position at work I take part in blogging (obviously), tweeting, online chatting, viral videos, document communities and  Facebook with the immediate reaction to say please “Like” us. Clearly the preceeding are not things old-fashioned people are involved with (as I breathe a sigh of relief). So how do things work together, how can you use a VCR and Twitter? Allow me to explain…

Fortunately EXAIR, even as progressive as we are, has a foundation made of stalwart and sound principles…

  • If you call us during business hours, a person answers the phone – almost revolutionary!
  • We stock our complete product line on the shelf and ready to ship from Cincinnati, OH. There is no need to fret about a lead time, if you have a problem we can ship something to fix it quickly. We ship orders same day when received by 3:00 pm eastern.
  • EXAIR manufactures our product in the USA, right here in Cincinnati, OH. Another reason we can ship quickly.
  • We are flexible, if you need a customized solution, since we manufacture the products, we can make changes to suit your needs. We do not rely on an outsourced supply of product which we have no control over.
  • Our performance data is real, imagine that! The large volumes of product performance information we place on our website are actual. There is no need to publish air consumption slightly under the competition to fool customers that we are saving more air, no reason to publish force values slightly higher than the competition only to fail at an application in the field.

Now those are some principles an old-fashioned guy can relate to, even if I do execute them via Twitter.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwards@exair.com

Everyone is Talking about the HEAT

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While sports fans are consumed with Lebron James joining the Heat, the attention of those of us in manufacturing are focused on heat related problems affecting equipment.

I was contacted by a customer who was having problems with his ink jet printing. Throughout the day, as temperatures climb, the viscosity of the ink changes  requiring frequent adjustments. Then on the night shift the settings have to be reversed. The problem with this method is the need for adjustments are not known until defective product prints are observed. This then requires the operator to make adjustments and take defective product produced prior and during adjustments out of the line.

Using a model 4308 cabinet cooler to maintain a consistent temperature around the ink pot eliminated any need for adjustments due to ambient temperature changes. This saved on labor, eliminated defects, and increase productive up time.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanfalone@exair.com

Line Vac Replaces Blower Operated Conveyor

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

I recently received an e-mail from a customer stating that his Blower operated conveying system was not working very well for them and also they were worried about contaminants getting into the product from the blower motor sucking in air close to the floor. After discussing his product and seeing the pictures of the unit shown below, it became clear that this was the perfect application for a Line Vac to replace the Blower Operated System.

  

I discussed with the customer the bulk density of his unit and the volume he needed to convey along with the size of the existing pipe on the unit.   With the pipe already existing it was determined that placing a unit of similar size would be the easiest method.  The inner diameter of the pipe in the system was 3” so our 3” Aluminum Line Vac was a direct fit for the application.   The amount of material the customer was looking to move was well under the capacity of the Line Vac.  This mean he could conserve even more compressed air and install a pressure regulator that was included with the Line Vac Kit to reduce the flow of the unit to his needs.  The unit when operated at 80 PSIG will consume 68.5 SCFM of compressed air, and be able to pull -14.7“ of water column. 

The unit was easily retrofitted into his existing hopper simply by removing a section of the pipe and installing the Line Vac in line with the product conveyance pipe. 
• The main benefits this customer received by installing our Line Vac were:
• No internal moving parts to wear out or break (bearings, seals, motors)
• The unit does not need any extra space from his existing conveying line.
• The Line Vac doesn’t suck air in off his floor where dirt and debris are to move his product.  This means the risk of contamination is gone. 
• If the need occurs he can increase the flow of his product to far more than the blower system was capable of.

Not only does the customer have minimal preventative maintenance cost now he is also able to convey his product more effectively and efficiently as needed for his production. 
If you have a product you are currently conveying or would like to know more about our Line Vacs feel free to contact us. 

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com

Every Link is Important

Published on by Bryan PetersLeave a comment

The beauty of team sports is that the success of the team cannot be guaranteed by a single player, no matter how high their individual skill level happens to be.  LeBron James comes to mind as the best current example (just pick a team already!).

Team sports are defined by the fact that, sooner or later, the outcome of a particular game (big or small) will come down to a player that no one expected to have a real impact.  Inevitably, the team’s success will be in the hands of someone who is not regarded as a superstar.  Do the names Steve Kerr and David Eckstein ring a bell?

Is there a position on any team sport held with less regard than the kicker on a football team?  Kickers get no respect.  Kickers get duct taped to goalposts.  Kickers have been known to injure themselves simply celebrating their own accomplishments.

This particularly hilarious video podcast from ESPN includes comments about a kicker trying to be intense by a “real football player”.  The guy who made those comments was former NFL player Mark Schlereth.  Schlereth also sells “Stinkin’ Good Green Chile” in and around the Denver area.  Their mildest flavor is called “Just for Kickers”.

With all of this kicker disregard, it’s funny just how many games are decided by the success or failure of a lowly kicker.  Don’t believe it?  Just ask fans of the New England Patriots (miss Vinatieri much?), Buffalo Bills (Scott bleeping Norwood) or our hometown Cincinnati Bengals (both former kicker Shayne Graham and former long snapper Brad St. Louis are held in the same low regard).

Unless your business consists only of you (sometimes with the addition of “and Associates” even when none exist), your business success is not going to be solely within your control.  The bigger your business grows, the truer this axiom becomes.  Recent management-speak using a bus as a metaphor for a business really misses the mark.  A bus, after all, is still controlled by a single driver.  That single driver largely controls the fate of that particular bus.  Are the passengers in the other seats, be they right or wrong, really critical to the success of the bus?

Business isn’t that simple.  A single person doesn’t have that kind of control in most cases.  Sticking with transportation metaphors, business is more akin to a trip via plane than a bus.  Many people, both in the air and on the ground, have significant roles in a successful flight.  Any those same people could also have a significant role in its failure.  Many complex pieces must work together and depend upon one another heavily for the success of the team.

Sales can’t succeed without marketing to get people interested and produce leads.  Sales are great, but are unsustainable without great customer service before and after the sale.  All of those things still aren’t worth much unless you can actually design, manufacture and deliver products that people want to buy at prices that are fair.  If you are a manufacturer, how important are things like actually purchasing the materials you need and having them available when they are needed?  If you are a manufacturer, is your quality department important?  And even if all the above areas are working well, isn’t accounting important to do things like collecting money and paying bills so that you can continue operations?

How many people are involved in these functions at your company?  How many links can fail before the chain (and your business) stops moving forward?

At EXAIR, we are blessed to have a very strong team.  Every piece is important.  Every person helps us succeed as a team and a business.

And every person has my personal thanks for doing their part so well.

Bryan Peters
President
bryanpeters@exair.com