Tag: Learning

15 Years – Comfort Crisis or Continued Challenge?

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

According to the Department of Labor, the average tenure for an employee in manufacturing is currently at 4.9 years. This number has consistently declined since 2014 as seen in the image below. This is not new information. I still remember when I was interviewing at EXAIR, the next tenure Application Engineer had been here for 12 years. That was in 2010. That made me believe that EXAIR treats its employees well and that people are happy to stay. I was drawn to this because I came from a family where my parents both worked for the same Steel Mill for over 35 years. Seeing a company that had an average tenure in the department I was going to join, sitting at 15 years, was at the top of my list.

1 – Median Employee Tenure Within Industries

At the same time, I was leaving a job I had been in for 5 years and was still learning consistently, just the economy was dropping out, and the industry was struggling. Would I be happy working in an office with this crew? I wasn’t afraid of being a young person and not knowing anything, I was confident I could learn. Well, flash forward through several years of constant learning, and now I am the most experienced Application Engineer. We have had some retirements and then lots of promotions leading up to this point. The one constant has been that I have always had new products, processes, or aspects of EXAIR and the compressed air industry to learn.

I mentioned the comfort crisis in the title because a lot of people I talk to ask me if I stay at EXAIR because I am comfortable. In all honesty, there has been a constant source of growth since I started. Whether it be our continuous product expansions forcing me to learn new materials. Obtaining my MBA from NKU to better understand the business side of EXAIR over the technical side of our products. Taking on different roles or contributing to new processes. Even up to the latest partnership with BETE Fog Nozzles, nowhere in the 15 years has there been a full month of pure comfort.

No one knows where the future will take us. All I can say is that I have been very blessed to make it this far and the future is looking even more exciting than the past. So tune in and stay with me, no matter where you go, let’s see where this ride goes.

Brian Farno, MBA – CCASS Application Engineer

BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

1 – Median Employee Tenure Within Industries – US Bureau of Labor Statistics – Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.t05.htm

Downtime: It Isn’t Always BAD

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

When you say Downtime in an industrial or manufacturing setting, it may easily carry a negative connotation. This means that the output of production is not happening and input to production has halted as well. If this is not planned, it is absolutely a worst-case scenario. In our personal lives, though, downtime generally doesn’t have a negative meaning behind it. That’s the time to disconnect and recharge to maximize your output after you return to production and that is exactly what I had the luxury to do recently. This is also a message I received from a person I look up to and trust in their experiences. Vacation time can be looked at similar to a preventative and planned downtime of equipment. Without it we just wear down and eventually productivity grinds to a halt. While hanging out at a lake with my daughters this past week, I helped them hone their fishing skills. They each baited their own hooks with worms and chose their spots. We completely slayed some bluegills, and released every single one of them.

The calm of a storm rolling in when you have nothing to do is serene.

Prescribed maintenance, preventative maintenance, vacations all help to build back into the production of whatever good or service the company provides. The entire production of a facility all starts with the utilities, energy, water, compressed air, steam, other compressed gases, and the personnel. If your power input isn’t maintained, monitoring connections and disconnects, you can find yourself with a lack of service, resulting in dangerous situations. City water is often required for processes or for the facility to function properly, even an office building needs it for plumbing, fire suppression, and drinking. Steam, compressed gases and compressed air may all be required by the processes.

Servicing the compressed air where it starts is one of the most critical steps in operating a compressed air system. Making sure that your compressor has the minimum downtime, all starts with the preventative and prescriptive maintenance. One of the first tasks should always be changing and monitoring the intake air filter. Like Russ Bowman said a while back in his blog, take a deep breath, if you sneeze or smell something that is from the intake air your nose just took in from the surrounding area. That’s even after your nose hair has already partially filtered air intake. Your compressor is no different. If you let it suck up debris, dust, and pollen, then it is eventually going to have a failure. Instead of sneezing, it may burn up a vane, valve, scroll or screw. That is going to be a considerably higher cost and longer downtime than just performing the manufacturer’s listed items to maintain optimal performance.

The compressor shown above according to the caretaker receives a regular change on the airfilter every month. This is just before the cleaning and changeover. Not only do they change the filter, they make sure to clean the entire housing inside and out. That’s one of the ways this compressor has lasted with minimal downtime over the past 20 years.

If you want to learn more about other key maintenance items in your compressed air system, please contact an Application Engineer today.

Brian Farno, MBA – CCASS Application Engineer

BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

Video Blog: Optimize your Compressed air use by Turning it Off

Published on by Jordan T Shouse1 Comment

On October 24, 2023, I presented a live webinar covering the methods and advantages of turning the compressed air off when it’s not in use or unneeded.

Compressed air is often referred to as one of the major utilities in most manufacturing facilities due to the cost to generate it. A major benefit to utilizing compressed air is the speed at which it can be shut off and re-energized for use – in fact, this can be done instantaneously. Shutting down the supply of compressed air to an application while it is not needed can drastically reduce the compressed air consumption of the process over time. This is an easy tactic that can produce significant savings for your process and your facility, even if you have high efficiency pneumatic equipment installed, this can still garner notable savings.

Here is the playback for that webinar!

If you would like to discuss  any of EXAIR’s safe, quiet & efficient compressed air products, I would enjoy hearing from you…give me a call or shoot me an email!

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

Send me an email
Find us on the Web 
Like us on Facebook
Twitter: @EXAIR_JS

Continuing Education… It NEVER Ends

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

In case you don’t follow me on Twitter / X or know me personally, you may not know my educational background. Well, I received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering Technology from the University of Cincinnati in 2006. Then a few years ago I went back to school at Northern Kentucky University to achieve a Master of Business Administration. The path I took to get there was drastically different from my undergrad and experiences through life are great teachers to what is important.

You see, when I left UC, I was at a point where I had struggled and came out triumphant, started working in the metal cutting industry and the amount of experience I was gaining was like a fire hose constantly. I was attending training, shadowing, and constantly researching or reading. Then, that started to slow, and I started to give the training and write the documentation that others were reading. The draw to learn new skills was still strong, so I continually signed up for more training or would research different aspects of the equipment I was working on to learn more about what they are capable of and the best ways to use them.

Once I transitioned to EXAIR I had an entirely new set of skills to hone, and an extensive product offering which led to weeks of training and reading. Slowly but surely I was able to gain an understanding of our product offering as well as continually conduct testing on products or processes in order to ensure I have a strong understanding of our products how they work, and what is possible to achieve with them. I then got the wild idea to learn more and push my limits, so I started my MBA and really stretched the limits of my ability to consume material and apply the knowledge. This was all a path to improve myself and my ability to serve EXAIR as well as our customers. The truth is, my mindset for online learning this go around was drastically different, and I looked forward to the challenge and structure then being able to apply some of the concepts in my day-to-day life.

The point is that we should never stop learning. When I was younger I didn’t see any value in learning more past my undergrad. Then, I learned you have to continue to learn, and so I continue to do so. Even today, after my MBA I still look for articles, classes, and events to gain more knowledge. This is also why I am glad that EXAIR hosts a wealth of knowledge available to our customers, and we also continually release new content.

The next installment of some knowledge from our team is happening at the end of the month, the EXAIR Webinar. Our own Jordan Shouse will be discussing ways to save compressed air by simply turning it off. Register today to save your seat and then show up for the live event on October 24, 2023 @ 2 PM ET.