At Issue

Hello world, how have my mechatronic maniacs been since my brief hiatus?

I’ve spent the past month working as a lobbyist for the engineering industry. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at greasing someone else’s wheels. Ho!

On to this week’s slew of questions, a special thank you to those who contributed.

Is it feasible to expect regenerative braking to have a larger role in industrial automation as it becomes more efficient? – Carrie, WI

With the advent of AC technology, I increasingly see regenerative braking becoming commonplace in the industrial automation marketplace.

Electrical power can be had by back-driving AC motors, which basically become generators thereby offering mechanical braking and regenerative electrical energy. 

What is the best way to monitor mechanical clutch disengagement? – Jeffrey, CA

The obvious way is with the result, movement/non-movement of the drive member. But there are many other ways of electronic monitoring, such as proximity sensors.

If the clutch/brake is electromechanical you can also monitor the transient effect in the current signal.

Why should I specify a mechanical clutch over a hydraulic or pneumatic clutch? – Ben, IA

A great advantage to using a mechanical clutch/brake over hydraulic or pneumatic is that all the ancillary fluid/air lines, seals, tanks etc. can be eliminated if the customer utilizes a mechanical-only device.

Quick and painless. Comment below with questions for next month or qualms about this month, I’m headed back to the wheel greasin’.

Innovative ways to improve processes and cut costs.

by Del Butler, Product Sales Manager, Magnetic Products, Inc.

Unprecedented economic conditions demand that manufacturers look for innovative ways to increase profits by cutting costs and improving processes. Generally viewed as a non-value-added function, removal of scrap metal is a vital, constant and costly task faced by plant managers worldwide.

By taking a “Total Systems Approach” to the function of scrap handling, plant engineers and others can learn how to convert scrap handling into both a potential profit center and an opportunity to reduce manufacturing costs. 

Most plant managers view scrap as the enemy. It is unsightly, expensive and time-consuming to remove. Financial managers are none too pleased with scrap, which they view as wasted raw material and wasted money. The CFO is eager for the plant manager to develop and implement upstream processes that cut down on scrap. 

Before discussing several ways that companies can improve scrap-related processes and cut costs, it is important to understand that cost-cutting initiatives not be executed in a vacuum. Operations, finance and manufacturing departments, supported by upper management, must join together and be committed to seeing scrap in a different light. 

If we take a look at the typical factory today, it takes approximately four labor-intensive processes to get scrap from the machinery to the foundry. These include:  movement of the scrap from the machine tool to the transport vehicle; movement from the transport vehicle to the storage area; movement from the storage area to the outside transport; and movement from the outside transport to the foundry.

There are opportunities to cut down the number of processes. One, incorporation of a scrap chopper reduces the size of large scrap, a problem of particular importance to the stamping industry. Smaller pieces of scrap create less volume and denser scrap can be sold at a higher premium.

Two, integration of material handling systems within the plant can quickly move scrap to a central location and reduce the number of individual vehicles and employees needed to move small loads of scrap. Some very sophisticated systems totally eliminate labor by moving scrap through overhead pipes to a large storage unit.

Three, installation of a larger capacity and more easily accessible scrap receptacle, such as one located on the roof of a facility, allows an outside vendor to park his/her vehicle underneath a bin where the scrap drops directly into the trailer. The truck can be quickly loaded and driven to the foundry or scrap recycling center

One of the newest trends in material handling is a move from pneumatic shaker conveyors to electric shaker conveyers, which run on standard 110 V current. Replacing pneumatic shakers with electric shakers, allows the plant to decrease or eliminate costly compressed air.

Furthermore, electric shakers are maintenance free and totally green. When considering any sort of capital investment it is best to consider designs and solutions that can be used in more than one location or that solve more than one problem.

While some of the costs associated with scrap are obvious, bear in mind that scrap also impacts the environment, plant housekeeping, energy and labor requirements, and floor space (the more scrap, the more space needed to store it and hence, more space that must be heated, cooled and lit). Scrap also poses safety concerns, particularly as coolants become contaminated with accumulated swarf and metal shavings. 

Dirty coolant grows bacteria, which leads to noxious odors, breathing issues and serious skin irritation. According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the costs associated with allergic disease dirty coolant are extraordinarily high: [ … ] $3.4 billion on indirect costs, related primarily to lost work productivity.   Dirty coolant must also be replaced more frequently so it is advantageous to keep coolant as clean as possible. 

While there are a number of ways to filter coolant, many of those involve the labor intensive, time-consuming and, frankly, distasteful, removal of swarf. Today, a number of filtration devices rely on magnetic or other types of technology to separate steel turnings, chips and/or swarf from the coolant flow, eliminating much of the need and cost associated with collecting, transporting and dumping waste materials. 

Magnetic technology is green, and substantially reduces both the need to buy costly consumables and the associated downtime required to change paper filters.  Certain oil skimmers use strategically placed skimmers to capture oil on the surface of process fluids. While the self-regulating tilting skimmer glides over the surface to collect oil, a pump ensures that unwanted fluids do not return to the fluid.  

___________________________

To learn more about this subject, please attend Del Butler’s presentation on Cost-Cutting Scrap Handling Solutions, scheduled for Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 9 a.m., as part of the IMTS conference.  Del may also be contacted at dbutler@mpimagnet.com.  Visit www.mpimagnet.com

I have studied smaller, innovative businesses as they are gobbled up by Goliath. It is not a pretty picture.

by Mike Rainone, Co-Founder, PCDworks 

Flying home from the East Coast last week, I was presented with another example of how American corporations mishandle new product innovation though the abuse of acquisition in the form of “organic growth.”

I was seated next to a young bioengineer who said he was working on a cancer drug for a small startup company that had recently been acquired by one of the behemoth drug companies. When I asked how things were going, it was obvious I had opened a can of worms.

He said that the tentacles of the bureaucracy had managed to stifle all creativity, stall the progress on the primary drug, stop work on additional variations of the primary drug, and run off all of the folks who had created the innovation in the first place. Does this sound familiar? 

I have been watching organizations since 1982 when I taught organizational behavior at the University of Texas - San Antonio business school. Over the years, I have observed the way big business deals with the intellectual property and innovative technology that comes from their own R&D efforts — or is somehow acquired for their competitive portfolio. I have studied smaller, innovative businesses as they are gobbled up by Goliath, and watched as they are absorbed into new organizations. It is not a pretty picture.

First, the bad news. I don’t know of a single case in which the big guys have ever successfully incorporated an acquired small company. By successful, I not only mean the transfer of technology, but also the maintained essence of the innovative spirit and drive that made that small entity such an enticing target in the first place. I’m sure it has happened somewhere, but I can’t point to one example.

This once again brings us to organic growth, an astonishingly deceitful notion. When businesses say they want to grow organically, they’re looking to buy existing business with technology relevant to their core business in order to complete or supplement an existing product line.

The company’s pursuit for “organic growth” shows that they are too inept or bureaucratically constipated to develop the technology on their own. Companies don’t seem to understand that the same poisonous conditions that nourish an internal new product development team inevitably kills off the acquired entrepreneurs that have created, developed, manufactured, and launched the product they cherished enough to buy.

I know of a tier one auto supplier who purchased a wonderful, family owned, creative developer of interior automotive systems —to acquire the systems as well as the creative culture to help their own stodgy new product development (NPD) processes. This company did everything right, including regular charter flights from one end of the state to their new Mecca of creativity, all intended to immerse everyone in the new culture.

You know the drill: cross training, design studios, corporate rah-rah meetings, posters of Chairman Mao, etc. Of course, we know how the fairytale ended with the small outfit shut down and the studios emptied. RIP NPD.

I do have some good news, however. I have found a company that knows what they are doing. That company is Shell.

Shell, of course, is one of the largest explorers and producers of oil in the world. They also spend a significant portion of their profits on both oil-related and non-oil-related R&D (approximately $1.8 Billion last year). For some strange reason, Shell understands the nature of entrepreneurs and the special relationship between those who create and those who drive to commercialize those creations.

A note about the “oil patch.” I have been involved with NPD for nearly 20 years and there is no industry for which I haven’t worked or innovated. The oil business is at the extreme end of every relevant aspect of NPD. Creating products for this industry is the most difficult task you can ever imagine.

The well environment makes conditions in deep space seem like a weekend walk in San Diego; the speed of adoption makes medical product development look simple (a ten-year adoption cycle in the oil patch is average); the patent minefield is dense beyond belief; and the testing and reliability requirements (in spite of what you think after the Deepwater Horizon fiasco) are interminable.

NPD in the oil patch is incredibly tough, competitive, and highly proprietary. It is not the kind of environment that would lend itself to giving inventors loose reigns on potentially valuable intellectual property. In the light of this misery, Shell’s strategy is even more astounding.

Because of the barriers, Shell spends a sizable chunk on internal R&D and looks outside of the company for technologies, which makes its attitude toward spinoff and investment even less likely.

The company’s first action is to spinoff some of the terrific technologies that are internally created, lock, stock, and barrel, along with the inventors and the entrepreneurial types that came up with the technology.

They are clever enough to keep a small part of it, but leave the rest for the inventors and the entrepreneurs to grow and nurture. And when they find an outside technology that they need, they invest in the company, without smothering it. They leave the entrepreneurs to run it, but with enough money to make a serious go of it. They don’t try to fold it into their gigantic accounting-driven bureaucracy.

Over the past few years, Shell can lay claim to over 150 innovations and start ups that were spun off, not tethered, but free to innovate, grow or fail, by their own efforts. Shell’s innovation activities, which they call Game Changer, have been well documented and can be found at:

http://www.shell.com/home/content/innovation/news/shell_world_stories/2007/gamechanger/

I don’t know anyone inside or outside of Shell that can explain such insanity, but this way of thinking caught on with big business it just might tip the scales away from our apparently inevitable domination by the Pacific Rim. Those of you with black thumbs, those of you in corporate acquisitions who couldn’t grow a weed or an acquisition if you tried, should commit this link to memory.

PS. I would love to hear from those of you in the trenches about your experiences with acquisitions, positive or negative, but I especially would love to find other examples of acquisitions that really paid off, those that helped the acquirer without destroying the acquired.

Finally, neither I nor my company has ever done work for Shell, or otherwise made a penny from them.

Mike Rainone is the co-founder of PCDworks, a technology development firm specializing in breakthrough product innovation. You can contact him via mrain1@pcdworks.com or by visiting www.pcdworks.com.

By Wallace Wittkoff, Hygienic Director, Dover’s Pump Solutions Group

Last time, we looked at how pump performance can be affected by a number of changing variables and how regulating “tight” vs. “loose” pump operation, in the form of controlling “slip” in continuous in-line blending operations, can optimize a pump’s performance. (Read: Fine-Tuning Pump Performance Bands)

Today, we will look at how a pump’s “narrow” vs. “wide” performance band can affect pump productivity and energy efficiency.

First, “narrow” vs. “wide” pump performance is not to be confused with tight and loose. In fact, in many cases a pump with a tight performance band gives it the ability to handle a wide flow performance range. The width of the pump’s performance band describes the range of speeds in which the pump can produce acceptable flow for the application. This is also sometimes referred to as the effective turn-down ratio of the pump, borrowed from terminology used in conjunction with motors or variable-speed drives.

For an actual illustration of performance band width, a typical lobe pump with a 0.153 gallon/revolution theoretical displacement effectively has a narrow performance envelope. That is because under an arbitrary worst condition — in this case pumping 1cps (water-like viscosity) fluid against 75 psig — the pump only begins to produce flow at 185 rpm. This means that speeds of 50 rpm to 185 rpm, which are considered good speeds for ensuring the long life of rotary positive displacement pumps, are not available to the pumping process. The performance band is therefore “narrow” as it ranges from 185 rpm (instead of 0 rpm) to the maximum mechanical speed capability of the pump, or some other process limitation like NPSHr vs. NPSHa, or the abrasiveness of product.

However, the actual performance graph of a pump with a wide performance envelope being used under the same conditions — i.e., pumping 1 cps product against 75 psig — sees flow begin to be produced at 15 rpm (instead of 185 rpm). In this case, on the low-RPM range, this type of pump is able to produce flow at a “wide” range of RPMs, rather than the lobe-style pump that begins to produce flow at 185 rpm.

Additionally, in most cases, pump wear further increases slip, as is the case with lobe pumps. If wear occurs in this type of pump, the manufacturer-supplied performance curve no longer applies and actual performance is unknown, unless verified in the field. This means that under wear, the point at which the lobe-style pump begins to produce flow could be even greater than 185 rpm, and prompt repairs.

In sharp contrast, rotary positive displacement-style pumps compensate for wear by maintaining as-new clearances. Therefore, there is no change in slip and the pump performance remains tight with a wide range of flow capabilities.

Our example application that exploits these needs — the continuous in-line blending process — benefits from pumps that have a high turn-down ratio. This is because the recipe to produce the final product can be highly variable as far as the content percentage of each ingredient. In other words, the wider the flow-rate range that is achieved by the pump, the wider the variation of recipes that can be produced with the system.

Good flow control from rotary positive displacement pumps offers options for more advanced processes, like in-line blending, that can have far-reaching influence on a macro production facility’s capital and operating costs. Respected pump manufacturers offer performance curves that can be evaluated to determine if the performance band is comfortably suitable for the application. If not, alternative pumping technologies should be studied and considered.

Not shown in most curves are the effects of wear on performance. Therefore, if wear is anticipated during the expected life span of the pumps and their parts, more subjective analysis is needed. Some curves do model wear, so look for those.

The bottom line is that rotary positive displacement pump technologies are the best for optimizing production. The different rotary positive displacement pump technologies can be compared and how they compare regarding their performance bands and other criteria is important. Basically, the criteria that are most important for the process should be heavily weighted while noting that none of the criteria cause a disqualification.

For more information on this topic, please visit www.pumpsg.com/PDF/whitepaper_PSG_PumpPerformance.pdf. For more information on Dover Corp.’s Pump Solutions Group, please visit www.pumpsg.com.

By Wallace Wittkoff, Hygienic Director, Dover’s Pump Solutions Group

When it comes to evaluating a pump’s performance or choosing the proper pump for an application, many people focus solely on flow rate.

In reality, a number of fluid-transfer concepts must work in concert in order to have a pump that is dependable while meeting the needs of the application. These concepts include inlet/discharge conditions, speed and power requirements, durability, and energy usage.

Over the years, as the benefits and operational advantages on in-line continuous-blend processing  have made themselves evident, rotary-style positive-displacement pumps have been determined to offer the precise flow control for precise metering applications.

Users of rotary-style positive-displacement pumps have found ways to produce a product at the least cost considering factors such as plant-wide labor, floor space, capital investment, cleaning infrastructure and total process energy usage.

In the past, several drawbacks in the use of continuous-blend processes have been caused by limitations in the pumping technology employed.

Past and existing systems can be effective, but cannot accommodate wide changes in process parameters like flow rates (affecting proportion limits) and viscosity (ingredient flexibility). Additional issues with existing continuous in-line blending processes include stability as a result of startup/shutdown conditions, equipment aging and process upsets.

However, new pump technologies, as well as the correct selection of existing technologies, are now enabling the wider use of continuous-blending processes that require more flexibility and stability.

A key consideration in this area is a pump’s performance band. This is the pump’s family of duty points (pump speed vs. delivered flow rate) resulting from pump slip for a range of possible process conditions, including viscosity, back pressure, temperature and even pump wear during its lifetime.

The pump performance band can be described as either tight or loose, which indicates how much the flow can change (think of slack) for a fixed pump speed. The performance band can also be described as wide or narrow to indicate the possible range of speeds the pump can run at while producing flow.

From a practical standpoint for in-line blending applications, the tighter the pump performance band, the better the metering accuracy under varying process conditions. At the same time, the wider the performance/flow rate band, the more flexibility there is in handling formulations that require a wide range of possible ingredient input flows.

In addition to the pump just simply working, the correct application of a pump’s performance band allows refinement to the transfer process, permitting new and enhanced applications that were previously not possible or reliable.

Tight Vs. Loose Pump Performance

The root issue with rotary positive-displacement pumps is that the flow performance on all pumps is to some degree affected by internal clearances that result in slip. The degree of slip changes with:

Given these product/process variables, tight performance is one in which the pump maintains close to its theoretical displacement independent of changes to the variables listed above. The very definition of a positive-displacement pump is a pump that transfers a set displacement per unit operation, such as revolution or stroke.

Tight vs. loose pump performance is the extent to which, under a given range of conditions, the pump maintains high volumetric efficiency. Pump slip is the difference between the theoretical displacement and the actual displacement. Therefore, the lower the pump slip in any condition, the tighter the pump’s performance would be under conditions of changing viscosity, pressure, temperature or wear.

Classifying a pump as simply positive displacement without quantifying the tightness of its performance band can greatly affect the desired results in an application. The extreme example is one in which, regardless of the pump speed, the slip is 100 percent.

That is, all fluid that is pumped forward then flows (slips) back through the pump’s internal clearances to produce no net fluid transfer. While sounding dramatic, it is not uncommon that a pump reaches this point (total loss of flow) before it is taken out of service to be repaired or replaced.

Most users specifying pumps attempt to control the extreme variabilities of viscosity, pressure, temperature and wear all at the same time. In many applications, this variation is sufficient to produce a challenging operational scenario. In some cases, advanced automation can help, such as using flowmeters with speed/pressure control loops. However, there are cases in which the possible variation cannot be compensated without recalibration or retuning the processes. These methods can prove costly or unfeasible, and could also increase system complexity (thus reducing reliability).

Today’s more advanced pump manufacturers provide the tools that permit evaluating the possible slip for a given application. Curves are supplied that demonstrate how to down-rate the flow given changes in back pressure, viscosity or change of internal component clearance to handle certain temperature ranges. These tools are helpful to be able to compensate for the performance.

At times, however, these performance changes can’t be adequately or reliably compensated and may not produce optimal control.

At the same time tomorrow, we will take a look at how a narrow vs. wide performance band can affect pump component wear. For more information, please visit www.pumpsg.com/PDF/whitepaper_PSG_PumpPerformance.pdf or www.pumpsg.com.

By Amanda Earing, News Editor, Manufacturing.net 

The BP oil spill has been drawing focus to the environmental damage such a disaster has on an already fragile ecosystem. But certain industries within manufacturing have their own endangered ecosystems — just take a look at any long, complicated supply chain. 

Just like an ocean ecosystem, long, drawn-out supply chains can easily wreck havoc on partners up or down the chain. Affect one member of the supply chain and the rest will be equally hurting. 

The Big Three automakers are a perfect example of the fragility of supply chains today. Critics of the bailout of GM and Chrysler often point out that, like any good capitalist economy, businesses come and go and the automakers should be left to their own fates. But what happens when that business affects hundreds if not thousands of others? 

Boeing, which outsources a majority of its parts through suppliers, failed to keep its supply chain on schedule — along with numerous other setbacks — and is now looking to push its delivery of the highly anticipated 787 passenger plane into 2011 — more than two years behind schedule.  

If your company is part of a supply chain, are you aware of how far up or down the chain your products reach? If your biggest supplier went out of business, would you soon follow suit? The more complicated the supply chain, the more manufacturers need to be aware of the effect their business has on others, as well as their suppliers’ effect on their own operations. 

Scientists are unsure just how much of a disastrous effect the spill will have on marine life, but unlike the ocean’s lifeline, manufacturers can closely monitor any supply chain disruptions and quickly come up with a Plan B.  

Increasing the visibility of your supply chain should be your first step to survival. Talk to your suppliers to find ways to share information in real time. The more visibility you have, the greater you’ll be able to plan ahead. In addition, having your own real-time info at hand will put you at a competitive advantage. 

Regardless of increased visibility, disasters can still happen. BP may have had safeguards in place, but those safeguards clearly failed. There was no Plan B. Saving your own operational ecosystem may mean quickly adapting to and implementing new ideas. To survive, the fittest will find ways to diversify or add new products or revenue sources to keep their own species from being wiped out.

Is your supply chain as fit as a fiddle? If not, what’s your excuse? Sound off by commenting below or e-mailing me at amanda.earing@advantagemedia.com

The quest for a universal charging standard

By Kedar Bhatawadekar, Product Application Engineer-Circuit Protection, Tyco Electronics

It’s a love/hate relationship. The superabundance of techie gadgetry at your fingertips makes your heart sing, but the hectic search to find the right charger to fit your cell phone, PDA, or other handheld device makes you want to call it quits.

Then we heard last year that help is on the way.

Major telecom companies like Nokia and Sony Ericsson agreed to use the Micro-USB universal charging standard on “future” handsets. Although a non-binding agreement, this is a major step towards ending the frustration of finding the right charger or having to buy a new charger every time you upgrade your phone.

On top of that, the Micro-USB connectors are smaller and more power efficient, and so will reduce power consumption and the accompanying greenhouse gases (not to mention the electronic junk in landfills).

However, there is one fly in the ointment: it isn’t clear if the Micro-USB interface will be fast enough to transfer the high-definition video on all your increasingly wicked-smart handhelds.

Speaking of fast, this year we are seeing the SuperSpeed USB, or USB 3.0, interface emerging in end-products. Although this new interface exponentially increases data-transfer speeds, it also dramatically increases the amount of current that can flow through sensitive handheld products.

This makes USB-enabled products even more vulnerable to such peccadilloes as using the wrong charger or turning on the car ignition after your phone is plugged in.

So, if and when manufacturers truly commit to a universal Micro-USB standard, will you have to choose between super-fast and super-convenient?

If so, will you pick the handheld gadget with dazzling downloading capabilities, or will you embrace products that may lack some whiz-bang features but promise to help you improve the environment, save money and, best of all, end your search for the one, right charger?

Please leave your comments below.