Month: December 2011

A Nice Hot Cup of Innovation

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Perhaps I am just easily amazed.  But I spent a quite a few minutes marveling over a coffee cup this morning.  It wasn’t one of those novelty ‘1/2 a cup of coffee cups’ or a brushed stainless steel travel mug we all seem to have too many of.  Or even my really awesome Boba Fett mug.  In fact, it was a disposable one from a popular sandwich shop.

The first thing that really made it stand out to me was the fact that it didn’t stand out.  In fact, the woman behind the counter had to point it out to me as a coffee cup because at first glance I thought it was just a regular paper soft drink cup.  But as I picked it up, its slight heft told me there was something different.  On closer inspection, I found that it actually had a second layer of heavy bond paper wrapped around the cup, separated from the base cup by about a 1/32” air gap (with the help of some corrugate in between).  Perfect for insulating my hand from that hot, caffeinated goodness!

After I filled the cup, I noticed that the black plastic ‘sippy cup’ lid was a bit different too.  It wasn’t that annoying kind where you have to break loose the little cover over the sipping slot and then try to snap it in place on a different part of the lid (usually dislodging the whole lid or worse, poking your finger through it and into hot coffee).  It had a fully functional sliding valve, just like a travel mug!  Needless to say, I have been thoroughly impressed with this little throw away cup.

So, perhaps I am just easily amazed.  Or maybe I am just blessed to have a career in the wonder field of manufacturing, where you tend to notice every little detail that can add up to an improved customer experience.  Whether that be in a disposable coffee cup or in a Plant Engineering nominated Product of the Year.

Innovation.  Very simply stated, that is what impressed me about this humble little cup.  And that’s what drives EXAIR’s to continuously bring you more energy efficient, noise reducing, compressed air products.

Dan Preston
Engineer
DanPreston@exair.com

Testing…

Published on by Lee EvansLeave a comment

One of the features truly unique to our business model is the ability and willingness of our engineering department. We take pride in being a manufacturer, and also take pride in the support we provide to our end users and resellers alike.   I recently needed to contact the engineering department of an industrial manufacturer to gather a few topical specifications for the benefit of an end user.

My experience was surprising – there was little assistance offered even for basic questions and I was told quite plainly in many cases that they had no information on their product at all.  Quite a difference when compared to our staff of application and design engineers at EXAIR who are willing to provide as much as we can.  I understand the need to protect proprietary information, but the information I needed was in no way proprietary, it was just an example of poor service.

Change the channel to EXAIR and you’ll find a much different program.  We field calls every day with application specific questions relating to materials of construction, operating parameters and tolerances, OSHA compliance, etc.  I’ve also been in the test lab checking conveyance rates with our Line Vac, verifying force and flow of a custom 1010SS nozzle setup, and checking dead end pressure of our Air Amplifiers.  And that’s just within the last week!

Remaining an industry leader requires a daily diligence, and not just from the engineering department, but from the entire staff at our facility.  If you have a question or need, give us a call.

Lee Evans
Application Engineer
leeevans@exair.com
@EXAIR_LE

Chances Are

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

Last night, at out Cub Scout Pack Meeting, it was my duty…and pleasure…to hand out the awards that our Scouts had earned by selling Boy Scout Popcorn this fall. Everyone who sold something got a nice little patch. Those who sold certain amounts were rewarded with gift cards. Those Scouts who gained admission to the $600 Club received their Zyclones, which I described with some help from David Letterman in a previous post.

Based on the amount of gift cards that were distributed last night, we verified that it is indeed in an organization’s best interests to incentivize their sales force. This year, we decided to offer an additional incentive at the Pack level: we raffle off a tent. For every $100 in popcorn that a Scout sold, his name went in the hat once. Odds were, a member of the $600 Club would win the tent, being as his name was on six tickets in the hat, and that’s exactly what happened. I’ve never had so much fun helping a boy take down and fold up a tent before.

“You can’t win if you don’t play” – that’s what the lottery folks say, and if you buy an extra ticket, you double your chances. Of course, an individual’s chance of winning the lottery is infinitesimal, and buying two tickets still places your chances somewhere between slim and none. Riley’s extra 5 chances in the tent giveaway, however, were significant in a pool of just under 50.

At EXAIR, we like to “throw our name in the hat,” if you will, in pursuit of the premier honor for new products in the manufacturing market, Plant Engineering’s Product of the Year Awards. Thumb through our catalog – you’ll see numerous nods to POY Finalists, and our fair share of POY Awards. And we’re proud to add two new products to that list for 2011: The brand new Atto Super Air Nozzles, and our Atomizing Spray Nozzles, introduced earlier this year, have both been named as 2011 Product of the Year Finalists!

If you use compressed air – or want to – for cleaning, drying, blow off, cooling, conveying, static elimination, liquid spraying, or vacuuming…give us a call. Not only do we have a product to suit your application, chances are, we have one of the best.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
Phone: (800)903-9247
email: russbowman@exair.com
Twitter: EXAIR_RB

It’s time to get the humidifier ready for the heating season!!!

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

In the Cincinnati area, we recently had some days when the temperature dropped down to the mid 20’s Fahrenheit over night. And just as Russ Bowman mentioned in his last blog about all the ill health effects that dry air has on the human body, I was caught by surprise from a few of the more physical effects of running around my house in socks and then touching a light switch to turn it on. I was the one that got lit up when I grounded myself out to one of the face plate screws as I went for the switch. SNAP!  I received a jolt that felt like my finger just got caught in an old Victor mouse trap.  I quickly yanked my whole arm back in surprise and a bit of pain.

I thought I was in the midst of a Bill Engvall joke, saying to myself, “here’s your sign”.  Go get the whole house humidifier re-fitted with a new water pad and dial that baby up to 40% RH! (A quick thought that lasted about half a second).

I thought I was discharged, no more problems, right?  I went over to the TV, got to within 1 inch of it and got nailed again!  We had just purchased a new flat screen and I was trying to trouble-shoot my HD signal (wasn’t working of course and my reason for being in the room in the first place). Gosh! I hope I didn’t just kill the new TV. Turns out I didn’t kill the new TV but I did change projects for the afternoon and went to the basement to tackle that humidifier to get it on line ASAP. It only took getting a static discharge twice in a row for me to figure out what I really should be doing. (My wife would say that I’m improving)

I did get the humidifier up and running just as our weather here turned back to wet and rainy which made the air in our house humid again so that static wasn’t a problem anymore. That’s the way my luck runs.  I’ll be ready next time though. The whole house humidifier is in tip top condition, ready to offset the loss of humidity from the coldest, winter temperatures.

Many people responsible for production in industries such as fiber glass, plastics, printing, geo-textiles, extrusion and more; have similar experiences as the humidity level drops and static problems become more of a headache. These guys sure don’t want to be getting hit by electrostatic discharges from their materials. If they jerk their arm away, the risk of severe injury could be the result. You also have damage to machine and finished goods which are also very real possibilities. EXAIR manufactures a line of static elimination equipment which reduces and neutralizes these charges so that production can continue safely and without risking damage to machines and finished goods. Check out our Static Eliminators for more info on how we can help you take the headache out of running production in dry, winter time environments. Do you need to receive an electrostatic discharge more than twice to learn your lesson?

Note: No application engineers were harmed during the preparation of this blog.

Neal Raker
Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com