Tag: improve

Getting Back To It – One-Step At A Time

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

I’ve blogged in the past about how one of my favorite things to do is to get out of my comfort zone and over the past year, that has been a struggle for me physically. I’ve slacked off on my rucking and event participation and continued to grow my knowledge level. That’s started to weigh on me over the past few months, so I began to change it. In all honesty, I was okay with being meh. That’s not okay, and I started changing it, how you might ask? It all started with my friends and my daughters.

Not a shabby pace for 35-pound ruck and second ruck back at it.

Rather than trying to do a 180 and completely disrupt my relaxed style, I took the approach of 5mm changes over time. That’s right, I am in the US and I just used the metric system as my primary measurement. So what does this look like, well first it started with less sitting and more standing. Even when at work, I try to stand most of the day at my desk, I’m grateful I have the means to do so through a standing desk. Then, rather than just hanging out while my kids are at their practices, I’ve taken that time to start rucking or at the very least walking/volunteering and working. These are different movements that I didn’t have over the past several months, and it’s honestly been 5mm changes and I can already feel the improvements in my sleep, and my energy throughout the day. The best part is, I can really relate this to being a great approach to an industrial compressed air system as well.

Over time a system can age, efficiencies lower, leaks start to form, equipment wears down or gets built up on it and starts to require more maintenance. Just like my personal journey, we can easily get these back on track by making small 5mm changes in our daily operations. We don’t have to completely gut and revamp a compressed air system or just throw more compressors at the system to fix it. We can follow the Six Steps to Compressed Air Optimization and work towards a renewed system.

Processes lead to continuous improvement.

The first point is to get a baseline, find out where you are, and then go from there. This is easily done with Digital Flowmeters w/ Wireless Capabilities. Then, rather than trying to change an entire facility, focus on one spot, one line, or even one machine. Then start to evaluate that specific point for leaks, and open blowoffs. Fixing just this one machine by reducing leaks, and replacing open blowoffs can begin to shift the efficiency within the system and drive the desire to do more. This return will also generally give the system the ability to handle expansion to other new lines as well.

Keep in mind, it doesn’t have to be a drastic change or complete teardown and rebuild. It should start with a baseline and then perform small changes from there, so the data can be collected and return can be measured to justify the means. We outline this process and do everything we can to offer items needed for each step of the process to ensure you have one single contact along the process, an EXAIR Application Engineer.

If you want to discuss further how we can help you keep ticking away at these 5mm changes within your system, please contact us.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Compressor Room Updates Improve Performance

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

I’d like to start out by saying a common theme I have observed over the past six months is a huge spike in DIY projects around the home. While everyone has been sent home to work and kids have been sent home to learn remotely, the home has become more than just a resting place. It is an office, school, recreation center, even movie theater. This led to an amazing year for home improvement big box stores and lots of people are tackling projects that they may have thought were beyond their level. At this point in the year we are also seeing a lot of manufacturing that either hasn’t stopped or is starting back up safely, there are lots of projects around an industrial facility that can be tackled during downturns as well.

Compressor Room – 1

The main focus today will be on a critical room that generally gets shoved back into a deep dark corner, the compressor room. The air compressor is a piece of capital equipment that generates a companies 4th utility, compressed air. This is then sent throughout most of the facility and utilized at critical points within production. Air compressors have changed their look over the years and are still often crammed into a small dimly lit room that no one wants to venture into. Having an outdated compressor room can also be causing undesirable performance and lack luster performance as well. Here’s a few items that can more often than not be addressed pretty simply to improve the overall appearance and most importantly the performance of the compressors.

Clean air intake on a screw compressor – 2

First, clean air intake. Rather than letting the compressor suck air in from the room that may be stagnant or even worse, just sucking in the hot air coming off the heat exchangers on the compressor and causing elevated compressed air temps. This fix can include ducting clean air from outside of the facility to ensure micro-debris from within the facility isn’t being pulled in. While pulling in ambient air from outside the facility will still require a filter that will need to be maintained. If a large single source is used, that is perfectly acceptable. To step this project up multiple smaller inlets that are each controlled by a damper would permit variability to match ambient conditions on temperature.

Industrial exhaust fan – 3

Second, install an exhaust fan that feeds the air not just out of the room, yet out of the facility if at all possible. This helps to promote a through-flow of air with the clean air intake and keep from recirculating dirty already cycled air. This will also help any form of system based air treatment that relies on an exchange of heat, such as a refrigerant dryer. Again, a fan that stays on constantly would be the base level fix, step this up by adding a thermostatically controlled system so the fan doesn’t run continuously.

Third, if you heat your facility throughout the winter, use that hot exhaust air from the compressors to reclaim the heat of the compression cycle and optimize your return on using electricity. This can be done by strategic routing of the exhaust ductwork mentioned above, and can be stepped up to have thermostatically controlled dampers on the ducts to open and flow the air through an adjacent room for cooler months rather than exhaust straight out during the warm Summer months.

If you would like to discuss any of these topics or any of your compressed air point of use applications, feel free to contact us.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

 

 1 – Air Compressor in Engine Room – retrieved from, Work With Sounds / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Air_compressor_in_engine_room.JPG

2 – Screw Compressor 1 – retrieved from, Endora6398 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Screw_compressor_1.jpg

3 – Industrial Exhaust Fan – retrieved from , Saud / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Industrial_Exhaust_Fan.jpg

Being Prepared

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

My sons went skiing with their Boy Scout troop this past weekend. It was the first time my youngest, who turns 12 next month, had been skiing, and he had a blast on the beginner’s slope and the tubing lanes. His 14 year old brother, however, is a grizzled veteran, having hit the slopes three whole times over the past three years. He’s quite athletic, though – this stuff just comes natural to him – so he and his friends spent most of their time on the “difficult” (marked by a blue square on the map) and “advanced intermediate” (blue square with a black diamond) courses. I don’t know much about skiing, but I do know that any slope represented with a black diamond is one that I do NOT belong on.

I mentioned his athleticism – right now, he’s in the middle of basketball season, his baseball team’s prospective pitchers and catchers are working out, and right after winter break, his football team began off-season weight training after school, three days a week. In the midst of all this, he still managed to find some muscles to get sore while skiing. Not as many as some of the other Scouts, though, considering the comments I heard at last night’s Troop meeting. They are all, however, looking forward to next year’s trip.

I tell you this, dear reader, because:
1. It reminded me of a conversation I once had with a customer, and,
2. It’s been a while since I wrote anything about Boy Scouts.

Now that #2 is out of my system, the customer wanted to discuss our Ultrasonic Leak Detector. He had recently purchased a Super Air Knife, and its performance made him think of where else he might be able to make improvements in his compressed air system. Since he had flow meters in place already (see The Six Steps To Optimizing Your Compressed Air System,) he turned to leak detection & repair. In other words, he wanted to find out where his system, much like my son’s hip & lateral abdominal muscles, was vulnerable.  Now that he’s finding out if he has any leaks to fix, he can move on to the next step of upgrading their operations with engineered compressed air products.

ultrasonic_2

And now that my son knows, very specifically and unforgettably, which muscle groups he needs to work on before the next ski trip, I hope he’ll consider some advance preparation next time. Even more than that, I hope that I’ll actually be able to join them then.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
russbowman@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_RB