Month: October 2010

Time Flies

Published on by Bryan PetersLeave a comment

Fall is in full swing here in Cincinnati.  The leaves that are left on the trees have turned, and those that have fallen have seemingly all blown from my neighbor’s yard into mine.  I have a feeling that the wind may change directions this weekend.

Time sure flies by these days.

It seems like not all that long ago we were going through one of the snowiest winters that I can remember in quite a long time (Michigan natives are laughing as they read this).  Summer came and went.  It was oppressively hot.  And now autumn has arrived.

It isn’t just the weeks and months that seem to be shorter, the years seem that way more and more.  I glared in mock contempt earlier today when our CFO suggested that I (and a growing group of coworkers) should consider getting a flu shot because we are now over 40 years old.  If I were more adept at scoffing, I would have done a better job of it.

This week does have me feeling older, though.  Tomorrow night is “Senior Night” for my son at his football game.  His mother and I will walk across the field and be introduced with him before he takes the field for his last home game.  He’ll go to his last Homecoming dance the following night.  It seems only a little while ago that he was an awkward little kid with glasses that was waiting eagerly for me every day when I came home from work.  Now he’s an awkward big kid with contact lenses that has other, more important things to do, like picking out a college.

His “little” sister is now a freshman in high school, and she’s awkward in her own “yes-I-am-really-wearing-Vans-with-my-school-uniform” kind of way.  I shudder when I think that she will be old enough for a driver’s license in less than two years.

Tomorrow night promises to both a happy and sad occasion.  It’ll be sad to see him play on that field for the last time.  It will hopefully be happy in the end because winning this game will go a long way towards securing a playoff spot for the first time in nearly ten years.  That’s one great way to remember your senior year.  Go Blue!

Take some time to enjoy today.  Because tomorrow will be here before you know it.

Bryan Peters
President
bryanpeters@exair.com

Simplify Compressed Air Cost, Get Started Saving

Published on by Kirk EdwardsLeave a comment

While you run around “putting out fires” in the plant or engineering department, handle employee demands and/or work through your everyday list of tasks – do me another favor  and gather the information necessary to determine the cost of your compressed air. After all you can’t begin to save it until you know how much it is costing you. All you need to know is this…
                         
                     (bhp) x (0.746) x (#of operating hours) x ($/kWh) x (% time) x ( % full load bhp)
Cost =          ———————————————————————————————————————————
                                                                                   Motor Efficiency

                         Where bhp — Compressor shaft horsepower (generally higher than motor nameplate Hp)
                                       Percent Time — percentage of time running at this operating level
                                       Percent full-load bhp — bhp as percentage of full load bhp at this operating level
                                       Motor Efficiency — motor efficiency at this operating level

Go ahead, I’ll wait for you (as I look at my watch).

Now, for certain, there are folks in the company who know some, or maybe all of this information. All you have to do is find them,  convince them you need the info, wait for them to get it to you, learn about bhp (brake horsepower), plug the information into the formula, remember how to work long formulas and come up with a number you may or may not be confident with. No problem.

Or, if you are a math whiz like me, looking at that kind of formula can be a bit overwhelming. And I like to keep things simple. So here is reasonable number to calculate the cost of your compressed air – You can use $0.25/1000 standard Cubic Feet of compressed air use. Again, 25 cents per One-Thousand standard Cubic Feet of compressed air.

This is a good benchmark number to use throughout the US. We are aware that all of us are paying a different value for our electricity, which is the largest cost associated with generating compressed air. And using $0.25/1000 SCF could be a little lower or a bit higher than the value you get once you have time to use the above formula but it is a solid benchmark and worthy of using so you may get started placing a value on an important resource. The simplified value also takes into account equipment and installation and maintenance.

Having a value of your compressed air is the place to start. Next you should begin to measure the consumption of your air throughout the plant. A digital flow meter is a product to place at each leg of your system or machines in your plant to find air consumption. It has an optional summing remote display which can show current usage, the previous 24 hour usage or  the total cumulative consumption. It  also helpful to determine how much air existing leaks are wasting. Then you will be on your way to optimizing your system and implementing a reasonable compressed air savings program.

Kirk Edwards
Application Engineer
kirkedwards@exair.com

EXAIR Products Carry the CE Mark

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

CE Marking on a product is a manufacturer’s declaration that the product complies with the essential requirements of the relevant European health, safety and environmental protection legislation, called Product Directives.

Product Directives contain the “essential requirements” and/or “performance levels” and “Harmonized Standards” to which the products must conform. Harmonized Standards are the technical specifications which are established by several European standards agencies (CEN, CENELEC, etc).

The issue of CE marking on EXAIR products has become such an important issue that our design staff has retained the services of an independent lab that specializes in CE certification. The project began late last year and we have been steadily adding new product groups to the list of CE approved items that EXAIR sells.

Following is a list of the products that now display the CE mark:

-Air Knives
-Air Amplifiers
-Air Nozzles & Jets
-Safety Air Guns
-Air Wipes
-Electronic Temperature Control (ETC)
-Electronic Flow Control (EFC)
-Vortex Tubes
-Spot Coolers
-Cabinet Coolers
-Cold Gun
-Static Meter

Three remaining categories for CE approval are:
-Line Vac
-E-vac
-Industrial Housekeeping products

CE should be achieved on the above products by end of October 2010.

What is the significance of having CE and why is it important to you as a customer?
EXAIR is the first and only company within our industry to pursue CE for our types of products. We have done this through an independent laboratory to make sure our claims are unquestionably legitimate. As the market leader for our types of products, the obvious benefit of conforming to CE standards and directives is CE does carry weight with designers and purchasing agents looking to source CE compliant products. We realize that many of our domestic and overseas customers are designing product for export to the EU region and so we want to make every effort to make our product more desirable not only in terms of price, quality and performance but also in terms of conforming to the directives, rules and norms of the international market.

Neal Raker
International Sales
nealraker@exair.com

Blog With A Twist (Ok, maybe it’s just a poll, not a twist)

Published on by Brian Farno1 Comment

So today I would like to try something a little different with my blog.  I would like to get input from you, our reader, whether your compressed air system is optimized or not.  This will be done through a series of blogs that will allow all of our readers to chime in using polls.  The main goal is to see what percentage of our readers can benefit from our Six Steps to Optimizing Your Compressed Air Systems. 

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for…….(Drum Roll)………………..The first poll.

The first step to optimization is to measure and know your compressed air operations consumption.  This can be done in several methods.   One of the best ways to measure is with our Digital Flow Meter and Summing Remote Display.   The Digital Flow Meter will offer real-time data as to your compressed air usage.  The Summing Remote Display will allow you to measure a cumulative usage for a 24 hour period or more.  With the meter and Summing Remote Display installed you can then meter your compressed air usage.  This could be done on the entire system or just one machine.  Once you have sufficient data you will then begin to see the amount of air you have saved from implementing EXAIR products. 
Once you know your usage it is time for step two, so stay tuned for the next installment.  If you can’t stand the suspense and would like to get ahead of the class, feel free to contact us.

Brian Farno
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
Twitter: EXAIR_BF