The company’s journey began in the late 1970s producing stationary two-shaft shredders for a wide range of manufacturing plant-based applications. By the middle of the next decade, Shred-Tech had developed one of the world’s first mobile shredding trucks, designed to shred confidential office paper and documents on-site.

Fast forward 40 years – Shred-Tech now has well over 6,000 shredding and recycling systems installed worldwide, and are recognized globally for their first-class products as well as commitment to engineering, innovation and quality. With shredders in daily use around the world, servicing over 31 countries, Shred-Tech equipment is helping customers reduce costs, generate revenue and protect the environment.

Shred-Tech has been “Thinking Green since Day One.”

In 2019, Shred-Tech® was acquired by The Heico Group of Companies LLC. Heico’s array of global resources will help Shred-Tech continue to grow and expand their offering of exceptional products and services to customers worldwide.

Shredding and HAAS TYRON
Shred-Tech® is the exclusive distributor of HAAS TYRON shredders throughout North America. But before considering these formidable machines, let’s briefly look at the way shredding works.

While many businesses and even homes have mini- to medium-sized shredding machines, it takes industrial-sized shredders to handle the genuinely big jobs. The HAAS TYRON shredder processes wood pallets, tires, paper rolls, plastics, roots, green waste, railway sleepers, residential and commercial demolition materials, municipal solid waste, industrial waste, food waste, mattresses, plastics, synthetics materials, aluminum extrusions, white goods, e-scrap and more. The shredders can also be used to produce refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and to reduce volumes at landfills and transfer stations.

HAAS TYRON exclusive
Since 2016, those who need shredding processes of this power have had access to the potent range of German-developed and manufactured HAAS TYRON primary transportable shredders exclusively through Shred-Tech®.

HAAS TYRON shredders’ speed-adjustable shafts rip through even the most complex materials, such as mattresses and e-scrap. The machines tear material into random pieces, liberating them, and the ferrous material is removed with the cross-belt magnet. The shredder shafts can rotate forward and backward and can operate in unison, bidirectional and at different speeds at the same time. These are infinitely programmable for changing material streams.

Available in three models, the 1500, 2000 and 2500, they range from 25 tons per hour to 100 tons per hour, depending on the application and material. Operating options include stationary, trailer or track mounting, hopper extensions, cross-belt magnets and water spray dust control. The machines are designed for extreme environments, ease of maintenance and low wear and tear.

The hydraulic systems ensure that the machines can withstand running 24/7 in extreme weather conditions.

Problem solvers
To complement the HAAS TYRON Primary Shredder, Shred-Tech® also offers a line-up of top quality single-rotor shredders and granulators manufactured in Italy by Camec Mechanical Solutions. Much like the partnership with HAAS, Shred-Tech is also the exclusive North American Distributor for the single rotor Camec lines and granulators.

Rob Glass, President and CEO of Shred-Tech® explains, “Our thorough understanding of all aspects of engineering and manufacturing, fueled by a proud and energetic corporate culture, puts Shred-Tech® at the forefront of the industry.”

All Shred-Tech shredding systems can be configured with application-specific knife design, cutting chamber size, horsepower, feed and discharge rates to suit the customer’s requirements.

With the unique flexibility that this offers, it is not surprising that “customers oftentimes approach Shred-Tech® with a problem that many competitors haven’t been able to solve,” as Cristina Battick, Senior Creative Marketing Manager, puts it.

In-depth service
With Shred-Tech’s broadly skilled in-house en¬gineering team, they are able to work closely with the sales department and the customer to find a viable solution. Coupled with a vigorous quality control process, in-house assembly and manufacturing, Shred-Tech builds and manufactures the world’s best shredding and recycling systems.

Shred-Tech® honours and fulfills all warranties on every unit. In addition, they offer full servicing replacement parts, as well as a dedicated, all-hours emergency service hotline. Skilled service staff offering full technical assistance can be onsite as quickly as the next working day depending on location.

Shred-Tech’s product lines and services include mobile document shredding trucks, collection trucks, plant-based document shredding systems, custom-designed shredding and recycling systems, original equipment manufacturer parts (OEM) and preventative maintenance contracts.

Breaking through
Founded in 1978, Shred-Tech® set out making stationary two-shaft shredders for waste products in various types of manufacturing plants. Then, in the mid-1980s came the breakthrough, when the company presented the world with the first-ever mobile shredding trucks. These trucks are designed to provide on-site secure document destruction.

Shred-Tech®’s contribution to a healthier planet is their machines’ reduced fuel consumption. They proudly announced that all of their 2018 model shredding and collection trucks run on ULSD (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel) and B5 BioDiesel and meet the EPA’s toughest emissions standards.

“Predictive Idle/Auto Shutdown” is a program available on all models that senses low shredder loads to shut off the high engine idle when the shredder is unattended and the hopper is empty; moments later the PTOs are turned off along with the engine. This means never wasting fuel and engine hours. The new remote panel start button allows you to restart the truck from the side control panel when you return with more paper to shred.

Thinking green
The company estimates that thanks to the volume of paper recycled by Shred-Tech®-fabricated trucks, over 22 million trees are saved annually. To share this understanding of how much can be done for the environment, Shred-Tech® hosts their annual Shred-Day. Local households are invited to drop off their confidential documents and watch them shred, with the proviso that they in turn make donations to United Way, the international non-profit organization that provides support to communities in need of education, sanitation, food assistance, and more.

The post Taking Control of Waste, A Thousand Shredders at a Time<p class="company">Shred-Tech® Corporation</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The XLR is groundbreaking in its efficiency and ability to remove more than 90 percent of potentially damaging dust particles before reaching the prefilter, ensuring Sy-Klone’s continued position as the world leader in powered precleaning and high efficiency prefiltering technologies.

The state-of-the-art XLR (eXtra Low Restriction) Powered Precleaner boasts a number of impressive features including zero restriction up to 130 CFM and a high-efficiency radial seal prefilter that removes 99.99 percent of ISO fine test dust.

“In the early ‘90s Sy-Klone developed its own precleaner which became the first plastic precleaner ever made” says Executive Vice President Jeff Moredock. “What has changed over time is the realization of what a precleaner does, and how we could improve the precleaning process to include high efficiency prefiltration.”

Cyclonic style precleaners — products used to remove the dust in the air before it can pass in the engine filter housing — evolved in the 1970s, utilizing a moving rotor that created a cyclonic air flow, gathering the dust and ejecting it from the precleaner.

“Sy-Klone innovated on the traditional precleaner technology, by optimizing the precleaning process through particle stratification which minimized the energy required to perform the precleaning process, reducing inlet restriction and optimizing precleaning efficiency. The Sy-Klone Series 9000 is not just a plastic precleaner it is a technological marvel.” Says Moredock

The XLR works by bringing debris-laden air into the precleaner, where the fan whips the air into a vortex with the debris riding along the outer walls of the precleaner housing. Debris is then ejected from the precleaner and the clean air in the center of the system is pushed through the prefilter with low restriction. The prefilter and housing are self-cleaning as debris falls off the filter and is ejected from the housing.

The XLR comes in two sizes to maximize precleaning flexibility, lower cost-per-operating hour, recover cost of investment, and extend the primary engine air filter life for an indefinite period. The XLR prefilter changes don’t expose engines to field service contamination, helping preserve the engine and catalytic converter, while avoiding related downtime costs.

In high dust conditions, engine filters are often changed well before the planned maintenance of the filter, resulting in higher operational costs and machine downtime.

“Most machines spend time on the job site idling,” explains Moredock. “Whether the operator is waiting to do the next job or on break, other trucks driving around are creating dust and the idling engine is pulling very little air into it. When that’s going on, traditional precleaners, which rely upon engine intake air to drive them, are working at very low efficiency, which results in the engine air filter being prematurely saturated with dust.”

The conversations at Sy-Klone about how to reach the next level and innovation resulted in the notion of applying an electrical motor driving a fan to create its own separation energy, and therefore no longer being dependent on anything the engine was doing, says Moredock. Even if you’re idling, the efficiency of the precleaning process would be the same if you are not dependent on the engine’s air flow.

“We were looking at around 80 percent efficiency on 20 to 30 microns, and the new process enabled better than 90 percent efficiency at five microns,” he says. “That was a huge leap forward. In fact, the precleaning process alone was producing air that had fewer particles in it than filtered air from a traditional engine filter housing.”

The process creates an opportunity for all kinds of good things to happen, he says. “The innovation was figuring out how to take dirt out of the air at a very high efficiency with no filter and doing it in a very short distance. Air comes in, and 16 inches later, particles are ejected out the back of the precleaner and clean air is passed through the high efficiency prefilter and then down to the engine’s air filter. We are precleaning the air down to five microns and then filtering it to 99.99 percent efficiency on ISO fine test dust, and we’re doing this in sixteen inches.”

Accomplishing all of this in a very compact space makes this technology accessible to engines on smaller machines and operator enclosures.

“Sy-Klone’s RESPA® and XLR Powered Precleaner® technology takes dirt out of the air prior to the prefilter at more than 90 percent efficiency; this is magical,” says Moredock. “If you want to know what makes Sy-Klone unique, it’s that we’re the only ones who have a patented, highly effective mechanical separation process that’s electrically powered and can be applied to engine intake systems and operator enclosures,” he explains. “Dust is the enemy of both an engine and the human lung.”

Building a simple device with a minimum amount of moving parts and applying the laws of physics that are engineered into the physical structure of the device, created a long-lasting product not dependent on electronics or moving parts. The only wear parts are the fan motor and the filter. The housing mechanism for running the precleaning process is engineered for durability and has no moving parts.

“We’re able to produce a precleaning device that is low-tech in terms of electronics and high-tech in terms of performance. That’s what’s brilliant about it. Our products are simple, compact, highly effective and elegant by design,” says Moredock. “It’s low maintenance, we have almost no warranty issues, it’s very robust and can withstand the harshest environments in terms of vibration as well as heat and cold and can run on any kind of machine in the world. We don’t have sensitive components that can break inside the unit. Its simplicity contributes to its durability.”

Whether you’re running a machine that experiences short filter life or premature engine failure, an XLR Powered Precleaner can make a huge difference when you are running machines in demolition and road construction, as well as harsh environments like landfills, recycling facilities, cement factories or mines, says Moredock.

“The goal is to have a machine run throughout its planned maintenance interval without servicing the engine filter,” he says. “Machine owners see downtime associated with premature filter or engine failure as a significant cost to their operations.”

The XLR creates a tornado in the air around the filter, and the safest place in a tornado is at its center.

“There’s no movement of the air in the center of a tornado; it’s just dead air space. We create the tornado in the device and place the prefilter in the center of the tornado. The prefilter is in the center of the tornado. The tornado picks up the dust and throws it to the outside where it is ejected from the precleaner back into the environment,” explains Moredock. “Our filter housings remain clean, and our prefilters are self cleaning. This unique process technology allows us to get extended filter life from a compact precleaner and compact prefilter without collecting particles inside the filter housing. With previous technologies, this was impossible to do.”

The fewer the particles passing into the engine or human lung the less engine wear and lung disease. “It’s a total paradigm change,” says Moredock. “It’s a tectonic shift in the way we look at filtration. We took old technology ideas and stood them on their head. The ability to take dust out of air before filtering the air through high efficiency filtration allows us to provide levels of protection that were previously impossible. Sy-Klone RESPA® technology is protecting the lung health of tens of thousands of machine operators around the world. Sy-Klone XLR® technology is improving machine productivity of thousands of machines around the world. That’s the magic in our revolution.”

Although the XLR is used primarily on heavy machinery, it works extremely well anywhere you have an engine running in high dust environment, says Moredock. It can be on a generator or piece of fixed equipment, or a crusher in rock quarry. The diversity of product application and industries makes this a very useful product.

“We’re committed to advancing the art or precleaning and prefiltering air,” says Moredock. “We started a revolution in air quality over 30 years ago and it has changed the world. We are and will continue to be known as a Tier One supplier to the world’s largest machine manufacturers and a company that innovates, delivers on time and builds quality, fully tested products that are cost effective.”

The post Revolutionizing Precleaner Products<p class="company">Sy-Klone International</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“We offer elite service, spare parts, superior products and 24-hour support,” explains company President, Charles (Charlie) Booth.

As Booth notes, the products in question consist largely of “foundation-drilling equipment and pile-driving equipment.” AE&F also offers a huge parts inventory, comprehensive engineering services, and excellent customer support.

Clients can call or email AE&F around the clock. If a technician can’t solve a customer’s problem online or over the phone, “we will have a tech on their site within 24 hours. We look after our customers’ problems. We get them up and running as soon as possible. This has always been the way we operate. This is one reason we’ve been so successful at what we do,” says Charlie.

Only the best
AE&F stocks equipment from a select group of major manufacturers:

• Drilling equipment made by Soilmec, an Italian firm established in 1969 that is a leader in the ground engineering industry.

AE&F is Soilmec’s oldest dealer in North America, having sold the first new European style drill rig in 1990.

• Pile-driving equipment from PTC – Fayat Group, a global company that specializes in vibratory hammers (branded as Vibrodrivers) for deep foundation work.

PTC has been at the forefront of technological advances in the vibratory hammer industry. It was the first company to launch the electric vibrodriver to the market in 1958 and PTC introduced the first hydraulic vibrodriver in 1971.

According to the website aboutcivil.org, “The principle of the vibratory driver is two counter-rotating eccentric weights. The driving unit vibrates at high frequency and provides two vertical impulses, one up and one down. The downward pulse acts with the pile weight to increase the apparent gravity force.”

Unlike traditional pile drivers, vibratory hammers are quieter and drive piles quickly, and with variable moment technology, first developed by PTC, can be used in close proximity to surrounding structures.

• Vibratory Driver/Extractors from Midwest Vibro out of Grandville, Michigan, which makes equipment under the name of H&M.

New to AE&F’s inventory is the H&M tier IV final H1200 & H1850. “These hammers continue to be workhorses in our inventory,” says Charlie.

• Hydraulic impact piling hammers and vibratory hammers from Dawson Construction Plant of the UK, which describes itself as “one of the world’s leading suppliers of piling equipment.”

AE&F recently added a series of new and improved hydraulic center-ram impact hammers from Dawson Construction Plant that Managing Director David Brown calls, “the fastest, most efficient hydraulic impact hammers on the market today.”

A hydraulic impact hammer is a modern type of piling hammer used instead of diesel and air hammers for driving steel pipe, precast concrete, and timber piles as well as H-piles and sheet piles. Hydraulic hammers are more environmentally acceptable than older, less efficient hammers as they generate less noise and fewer pollutants.

An expanding portfolio
AE&F is still looking to expand its equipment portfolio. It has introduced a new line of rotating telescopic handlers from Italian firm Magni. At the forefront of mechanical engineering equipment since the 1950s, Magni started making telehandlers in January 2013.

“We have been interested in the Magni rotating telehandlers for a while. I thought it was something American Equipment could do well with. Magni makes the safest rotating telehandler lift in the market, with a load-moment indicator built in,” says Booth. (A load moment indicator [LMI] monitoring system offers an audio and visual pre-warning to operators if their equipment becomes unstable.)

American Equipment also stocks Ciancaleoni sectional casing and tremie pipe for rental and sale. AE&F has used equipment available as well.

In it for the long haul
American Equipment likes to build lasting relationships with the vendors it represents. The company thoroughly investigates potential vendors, their products and their reputation in the industry before taking on distribution of their equipment with a long-term view.

That being said, AE&F remains enthusiastic about, and searches out, impressive new equipment from trustworthy suppliers. AE&F is “looking at a couple of new vendors right now,” with a view towards stocking their equipment, says Booth, but no firm agreements have been reached yet.

Every need, every client
Should a customer need a part or component for their drilling or pile-driving equipment, AE&F offers a massive parts department. This department stocks roughly $4-million worth of parts and products at any given time. Well-trained staff use a cutting-edge inventory management system to keep track of their offerings. Efficiency rules; AE&F says that it fills 85 percent of parts orders in under 24 hours.

The company also operates in-house fabrication and machine shops. The fabrication shop is well-equipped with plasma cutters, band saws, overhead cranes and Mig and Tig welding machines. In similar fashion, AE&F’s machine shop features CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machine tools, vertical lathes and boring mills, among other machinery.

“We’re well-rounded… in terms of capacity, we do special machine work for customers as required,” says Booth about the company’s machine shop operations.

At the top of the service game
This activity is augmented by a wide-ranging service department that offers exceptional customer support. Clients contact this department 24 hours a day for advice or to be guided through repairs. The service department maintains a team of trained technicians available to handle any customer request large or small.

The service department has implemented an electronic solution from Soilmec called the Drill Mate System (DMS). DMS gives AE&F technicians the ability to gather data from DMS-equipped drilling rigs and remotely monitor machine performance.

The Drill Mate System was developed by Soilmec in the late 1990s for fleet management, drilling-equipment control and production supervision purposes.

DMS alerts AE&F staff and customers about potential mechanical or safety problems and allows for remote adjustments before a major issue develops. In many cases, clients can avoid shutting down operations, which saves time, money and resources.

Digging in for the client
Most of AE&F’s customers are based in the United States, and AE&F is thinking about expanding its operations. “We’re looking at growth opportunities in other areas of the country but want to be sure that wherever we may go we can provide the service our customers have come to expect from us. We want to increase market share as well,” he says.

AE&F traces its roots to a company called C.L. Guild Construction, founded in 1950. “C.L. Guild was instrumental in developing the first Bodine sonic-pile driving hammer… They did a lot of work in the U.S., mostly with pile-driving equipment,” recalls Booth. The McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction says that a sonic pile driver is “a device for driving piles into soil by means of a hammer whose head is vibrated {usually at a frequency less than 6,000 times per minute}; this vibration is transmitted to the tip of the pile, resulting in a penetration that is relatively rapid and quiet.”

Over the decades, there were changes in ownership and the company’s focus was broadened to include foundation drilling equipment in addition to pile driving equipment. C.L. Guild Construction evolved into what eventually became American Equipment & Fabricating Corp. in 1985.

AE&F currently has about 30 employees. Included in the staff are engineers, service technicians, machinists, fabricators, welders, parts staff, office staff and sales staff. Regardless of the position involved, Charlie says the company instills certain core values in its workers; namely, “honesty, objectivity, trust, integrity and excellence.”

Industry presence
American Equipment promotes itself in a variety of ways. The company maintains a website and social media presence with profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn. AE&F regularly attends industry events such as CONEXPO-CON/AGG, North America’s largest trade show for the construction sector, scheduled this year for March. The team also attends the International Foundations Congress & Equipment Expo (IFCEE) scheduled for 2021.

On the international front, AE&F attends bauma, a huge construction and industrial machinery show that takes place every three years in Munich, Germany (the next bauma show is scheduled for April 2022). The firm also travels to Intermat Paris, an international construction and infrastructure event (the next Intermat Paris show is slated for April 2021).

AE&F is also affiliated with several industry groups, including the Association of Drill Shaft Contractors (ADSC), the Pile Driving Contractors Association (PDCA) and the Deep Foundations Institute (DFI).

Although the market remains competitive, American Equipment is meeting this challenge with its unchanging resolve of providing only the very best products, parts, service and expertise. With this winning approach in place, Booth’s manner is optimistic and upbeat regarding the future of the company.

The post A Winning Formula for Success<p class="company">American Equipment & Fabricating Corp. </p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Headquartered in Reggiolo, Italy, Comer Industries designs and manufactures drive shafts, powertrains, planetary drives, gearboxes, and other equipment for industrial and agricultural machinery. The company’s products are used in wind turbines, mining, road construction and forestry machines on the industrial side, and tractors, soil tillage, and forage mixing machines on the agricultural side.

“We serve the agricultural and industrial sectors,” states Lane Boger, Sales Director for North America. The two sectors are currently fairly evenly split. “Traditionally, Comer was biased more heavily on the agricultural side.”

Through diversification, hard work, and a reputation for producing excellent products, Comer has become a global entity with operations in nearly a dozen countries. Manufacturing is performed in Italy, China, and India. The company’s American subsidiary, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, offers “engineering, warehousing, some design, customer service, accounting,” among other services, says Boger.

Given its international reach, Comer Industries is determined to maintain a consistent level of quality across all its branches. The firm follows comprehensive policies and procedures based on ISO 9001:2015 quality management criteria to uphold high standards in everything it does, from manufacturing to deliveries and sourcing. Quality control “is governed by the same criteria, whether it’s manufacturing in Italy or China,” notes Boger.

The company was founded in 1970 in Italy by the Storchi family, and the company name stands for Costruzioni Meccaniche Riduttori which is shortened to Co.me.r. At first, the company mainly focused on making mechanical transmissions for agricultural machines. During the 1980s, it expanded its sales presence in France, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States. In 1990, it introduced a product line for industrial clients, massively expanding the scope and scale of its operations.

Strong growth ensued, and the company continued to expand. After the turn of the millennium, Comer opened branches in Asia and South America. For all this growth, this is still a family-run business. “The children of the first generation are running it now. [Comer] is still family-owned but publicly-listed,” says Boger.

With the company preparing for its fiftieth anniversary, he says diversification has been central to ongoing success. “If the agricultural market is down, the industrial market can pick up for it. We have a diversification of strategic products out in the market, and in addition to that, we have super aggressive sourcing campaigns all over the world. We’ve got supply chains we’re pulling from in all countries and from all angles,” he states.

While maintaining close ties to many long-standing vendors, the firm is always on the lookout for new potential suppliers and lower prices. It is part a strategy to constantly improve operations and enhance product quality.

“Obviously, we have long-term partnerships and contractually obligated relationships with our supply base, but we’re always on the side of aggressive sourcing,” he says.

At present, the company has 1,328 employees around the world, a little over thirty of whom work in the United States. It takes a keen interest in workforce development and runs a staff training and management facility in Italy called the Comer Academy.

The academy represents “an opportunity for us to reinvest in employees as part of our own internal sustainability plan. You talk about sustainability from an environmental standpoint but there’s also the personnel standpoint – funneling resources back into strengthening personnel,” explains Boger.

The academy aims to sharpen the skills of staff members through training courses designed to enhance their product knowledge, sales methods, and leadership capabilities. This all fits within a corporate culture that emphasizes transparency and honesty as well as opportunity and excellence.

Comer’s concern for its workforce is also reflected by its comprehensive health, safety, and environmental management program which is run according to ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2015 standards. Risk management protocols are closely adhered to and regularly evaluated; workplaces are designed to be as hazard-free as possible, and employees are routinely consulted on health and safety matters.

“Our customer base, some of the largest OEMs in the world, keep coming in [to our plants] and are impressed by what they see. They know we’ve got the right processes in place. It doesn’t matter if it’s manufacturing or health or safety,” notes Boger.

Comer Industries has won a lengthy list of awards. These include the ‘Quality Supplier Award 2018’ from CNH Industrial which recognizes the high standard of its services and deliveries, among other things and AGCO ‘Partner of the Year’ 2018. Given that Comer is one of thousands of AGCO suppliers, the partner of the year award was a significant honor. In 2017, for the fifth consecutive year, it obtained ‘Supplier Quality Excellence Process Certification-Bronze Level,’ a standard set by manufacturer Caterpillar.

Comer Industries wants to expand into new markets and introduce new products. “I can’t spill the beans, but I will say we’re always keeping an eye on what the latest industry trends are for machines. We continually have to evolve our products. We know that integration of technology is probably the biggest next step for us – having what is a traditionally simple product or just gears and transmissions and integrating a level of technology into that, whether it’s electrification or sensors or monitoring,” he says.

“We have our pulse on what the industry needs as far as evolving our current product line. We have standard offerings that are out there,” he says. “But beyond that, obviously we’re open to evolving them and having the inherent flexibility to meet customer needs.”

Comer regularly participates in trade shows and industry events around the world. “We attend all the big industry events. You’ve got CONEXPO in the United States. You’ve got Agritechnica, a big agricultural show in Hanover, Germany. But there’s also industrial shows that we participate in, in all corners of the planet, whether it’s bauma in Shanghai or bauma in Munich,” Boger says. The bauma trade fair is the world’s largest showcase of equipment for the construction industry.

Scheduled for March 10 to 14, 2020 in Las Vegas, the CONEXPO-CON/AGG event is the largest trade show for the construction sector in North America. Attending and/or exhibiting at events such as CONEXPO-CON/AGG gives the company the opportunity to “show our innovations, show our products and have our technical sales support guys,” answer questions from potential customers, says Boger.

Huge OEMs such as John Deere and Caterpillar exhibit at such events as well. As he points out, these equipment manufacturers sometimes choose to spotlight machinery that contain Comer Industries gearboxes, powertrains, or drive shafts, which is a nice bonus.

Comer’s American subsidiary is actively involved in local charitable and community work. During holiday season, employees have the opportunity to donate their time by volunteering at food shelters, for example. The U.S. branch supports international disaster relief agency Samaritan’s Purse and Shop with a Cop, a charity in which a uniformed police officer shops and socializes for a day with underprivileged children, among other charities.

Right now, the biggest challenge facing the company is maintaining strong revenues in the face of economic uncertainty. “We’re tied directly to what the markets do. Our biggest challenge is always maintaining profitability despite downturns. Everybody can have a good time when markets are up and OEMs are selling tons and tons of machines but it’s [important to] maintain financial security or bottom-line security within the company during the downturns.”

While markets have been a bit unpredictable lately, Boger is optimistic. “We’re in the middle of what is a big agricultural downturn right now. We’re seeing a consolidation or a little bit of a market deceleration on the industrial side. Comer will close this year, despite down markets, at an all-time high. When those numbers are published, we’ll be above 2018 values.”

Indeed, in spite of any overall economic blips, he envisions growth, new markets, and new products. “We want to continue and maintain what are our current flagship businesses, big applications that we sell a lot of material into or have a high level of volume to. But we’ve also got our eye on some emerging markets or even the takeover of market share from our peers in a couple of strategic areas. For us, there will probably be some healthy growth for 2020 to 2021 but also the realization of some major projects and products we’ve got in development right now.”

The post International Family Firm Approaches 50 Years of Success<p class="company">Comer Industries</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

With headquarters in Jenks, Oklahoma, TWG has a second plant in Surrey, B.C., Canada, and one in Bangalore, India. The company’s proprietary products are assembled and manufactured in Jenks.

Founded nearly a century ago, TWG is today owned by the Dover Corporation of Downers Grove, Illinois.

House of brands
“TWG itself is a house of brands,” says Cody Ward, TWG’s Director of Strategy and Business Development. “Over time, we’ve acquired a number of the top players in this industry.” These include Gear Products, DP Winch, LANTEC, Pullmaster, Tulsa Winch, Greer and RUFNEK.

Now operating as segments of TWG, these brands specialize in products such as hoists, winches, swing drives, slewing ring bearings, and real-time load monitoring solutions. TWG is particularly keen to put the electronic products that are produced under the Greer brand-name front and center.

Load-moment indicator (LMI) monitoring and real-time object monitoring alert systems represent some of the company’s most popular Greer brand-products. Fitted to both construction and utility cranes, these electronic monitoring solutions warn the operator if a crane should begin to have stability problems.

Greer LMI from TWG offers multiple screens, audio and visual alarms, waterproof design, intuitive interface and menus, crane diagnostic and configuration data, and so on. TWG designs and manufactures both hardware and the software for these LMI systems and other Greer electronics.

Manufactured in the USA
“We have our own proprietary control module that we built,” Ward says. “We also built the software that powers it in-house as well. All the manufacturing is done in Jenks, Oklahoma. That’s pretty unique for our space, especially for an electronics product,”

TWG recognizes the strength of the Greer product line and has made significant investments in the revitalization of the brand. “In 2017, we took a hard look at our innovation pipeline and what we want to do, and started to invest heavily in that space,” Ward says. He adds that focusing on Greer products is an excellent way to position the company at the forefront of technological change in the industry.

An eco-system for cranes
“Think about where the world is going and the innovation that’s happening. Digital innovation is outpacing mechanical innovation. So, the opportunities for us to leverage what’s going on in the digital space with Greer products are compelling for us,” explains Ward. “Both for solving problems for our customers and in terms of overall growth.”

Greer electronics also represent something of a springboard to other TWG offerings. “We provide a variety of components to go on a crane – winches, hoists, slewing ring bearings, swing drives – numerous mechanical products,” Ward says.

The idea is to create a crane “eco-system” in which TWG crane products are linked with Greer electronics, an inclusive solution “that brings tangible value for our customers.”

As it is, TWG primarily sells LMI systems to crane manufacturers who serve the construction and utility sectors. TWG also maintains a network of aftermarket distributors.

“Our primary customer is an OEM who is designing a crane. There are also cases in the aftermarket where someone wants to take an LMI system off their crane and put on a different one. Our distributors can assist with that. There is also the wear and tear that goes on in terms of needing new parts. End-users work with both our OEM and our distribution partners in the aftermarket to get their crane back up and running,” says Ward.

Why TWG
Asked why a crane manufacturer should choose an LMI system from TWG over a similar solution from a competitor, Ward cites reliability, versatility and speedy set-up time.

“Greer products have been around for decades and enjoy a reputation for heavy, robust engineering. Also, there are a variety of systems that compete with our product that aren’t as comprehensive in nature as the Greer system. They might tell you the load hanging from the hook, but they don’t tell you the entire force being applied to that crane boom,” he says.

Ward says that when an LMI system is installed on a crane, an initial “calibration process” is required. While “other competitive technologies take days to calibrate, with the Greer system, after the initial installation on a piece of equipment, it takes about four to five hours to get it up and running.”

Other TWG electronics include drum rotation indicators, light bars, torque indicators and wired and wireless anti-two block (WATB) switches for boom protection.

From single winch to full bouquet
The new emphasis on high-tech solutions shows how far TWG has traveled since it was launched in 1929.

Originally called Tulsa Winch Inc., the firm was “founded by a truck-salvage operator who based his original winch designs on the rear-axle gear sets of Ford Model-T trucks,” is how it’s told in TWG corporate history.

In 1996, TWG became part of the Dover Corporation. Since then, TWG (the initials stand for ‘Tulsa Winch Group’) has acquired the companies that make up its current brand portfolio:
• DP Winch specializes in hydraulic planetary gear winches “used for military and conventional applications. Tow-trucks would be the main driver of that,” Ward says.
• The Gear Products brand covers “rotators, slewing ring bearings. Anytime you have an application that’s turning, there’s something we can do for it – excavators, tow-trucks, cranes, you name it.”
• LANCTEC offers heavily engineered solutions including winches for offshore oil applications and theme parks. In a similar fashion, the Pullmaster brand is focused on “marine applications. When you turn on [commercial crab-fishing reality-TV show] Deadliest Catch, the winches you see there are almost exclusively our product. Pedestal crane winches mounted on a boat.”
• Tulsa Winch provides mostly “oil-field based products.”
• RUFNEK brand consists of “a specialty product designed for the oil-field. Winches you almost exclusively see for pulling skids and different things in oil-field,” says Ward.

Tenured in Jenks, Oklahoma
For all the focus on high-tech electronics, TWG is committed to the community and recognizes the importance of maintaining good employee relationships. While it might be cheaper to move manufacturing operations offshore, TWG is determined to keep things in Jenks. There are two main reasons for this: TWG is loyal to its workforce and wants to maintain what Ward calls ‘the pace of innovation.’

“Many of our employees are long-tenured. A 20-year employee is not unusual for us. That experience, we really value. Also, we’re trying to really drive new products to market very quickly. Doing that in-house, literally 150 feet from my office, is extremely helpful. There are no plans to change that.”

For promotional purposes, TWG routinely attends trade shows. The company exhibited at the International Construction & Utility Equipment Exposition (ICUEE) in fall 2019 in Louisville, Kentucky, and will be attending CONEXPO in Las Vegas this March.

At ICUEE, TWG unveiled a new object detection system called Greer Vision, which allows operators to integrate up to four cameras to their display for enhanced visibility and safety. TWG also introduced a new touchscreen for the LMI at the show.

Ward says TWG also has a social media presence, with “brand-focused social media posts” and blog posts focused on specific company brands.

As TWG approaches its centenary, the company is eager to expand the range of its technological solutions.

Load management technology
“Rather than focusing traditionally on LMI like we have in the past, we’re now focused on what we call load management technology. That’s something much broader than purely an LMI offering. So, we’re looking at all the ways we can make a crane operator’s job safer and more efficient. That’s where we’ve expanded the scope of what we’re willing to tackle within that brand,” states Ward.

He thinks the future is going to be “extremely positive” for TWG, “both because of the overall investment that’s been made by Dover in Tulsa Winch Group; growth we’ve seen over the last several years; and because of some of the new digital innovations we have coming down the pipeline,” he shares.

“I think you will look back in three, four, five years and look at the products we’re coming out with and compare with some of the things we’ve done in the past and be extremely surprised by the sheer volume of change that’s happened to us in that period of time.”

The post Manufacturing the Tools & Technology of Today<p class="company">TWG Inc., A Dover Company</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Founded in 1957, the company houses a rebuild facility in Houston and a manufacturing facility in Bryan, Texas; boasts one of the largest machine shops in the state; and, while it’s making a move in the industry toward hydraulics, has found a niche in continuing to rebuild friction rigs and undercarriages.

“The crane industry in general is kind of a niche market,” says Travis Stokes, Sales. “But the friction cranes themselves have become extremely niche, which is what we manufacture a full line of parts for.”

Friction cranes work on a series of gears and clutches, with each drum activated by friction. It’s an older technology that’s been in use for 100 years, but in the last 20 years the industry has seen a slow shift to hydraulic, with a more rapid pace over the course of last five years, Stokes explains. And while there’s still a place for the friction cranes, it’s become an extremely specialized market.

Friction cranes are still popular in various parts of the world, but Stokes explains that the transition in the crane industry at large from friction to hydraulic machines is good news for his company.

“We’ve expanded into hydraulics as well, so it’s been good for us in the sense that we’re able to cater to machines that no one else can,” he says. “You have to adapt to what the market’s been doing. As far as growth goes, that’s really what I would point to as a significant factor: we’ve been purchasing parts of machines, selling machines, and manufacturing parts for both friction and hydraulic machines.”

Evolving with the industry
Mitchell Crane has expanded its product line to accommodate what’s become commonplace in the industry, which is along the same lines as what’s happening with the electric car phenomenon, he says. “You have to adapt to figure it out. It’s not common enough for every mechanic shop to know how to work on a Tesla, for instance. That transition is occurring for us though, and you have to be able to accommodate hydraulic machines now.”

And the change is one that is needed. While static cranes will still do the essential job of picking up heavy things, the nature of the cranes’ speed and the safety with which they will do the work, coupled with the speed to move from one location to another, is all greatly favored on the hydraulic side, and Mitchell Crane has risen to the occasion.

“Hydraulics are the future and we’re there,” says Stokes. “But these frictions rigs haven’t gone away. Rather than the hydraulics taking over and the friction rigs disappearing, what you have is a definitive split, in which the friction rigs are in these very niche markets, but they’re still there. They’re not being hauled off to the scrap yard.”

On a global scale, developing countries such as Mexico, Vietnam and India all have a significant amount of friction rigs that the company caters to, while still continuing to move into the hydraulic side. Mitchell Crane, says Stokes, stands alone in catering to both sides of the market. “We stay busy,” he says. “We get busier all the time, and busy with different things.”

The undercarriage service, for example, is a very popular service for the company right now, with numerous jobs on the books. It’s a big job, essentially rebuilding the lower half of the walking part of the machine completely, including tracks, rollers, brass bushings, and seals. Mitchell Crane has always done that work with the friction rigs, but now has an equal amount of jobs between friction and hydraulic.

Personalized service
From a service perspective, Mitchell Crane has it covered, with the manufacturing facility in Bryan encompassing more than 30,000 square feet of machining floor to provide the aftermarket crane parts, with a mobile mechanic fleet doing repairs on site. If the repairs are more extensive, the repair facility in Houston does the repairs or rebuilds.

“One of the unique things we do is a complete machine rebuild, where we take in a friction rig — one of these older cranes that’s still a 200-ton crane — and rebuild it from the ground up, with the parts we make in Bryan,” says Stokes. “We can do it complete with the friction rigs also because we have the knowledge on these cranes. That knowledge is retiring bit by bit, but because of the wealth of knowledge we’ve had in the new generation we’ve been training here, it allows us to cater to that.”

But before rebuilding a rig, or choosing which machine is right for the job, Stokes needs to know a variety of information such as what the application is or, for example, the amount of times the customer wants to move the machine. If they plan to move it two or three times a week to different job sites, he may suggest a hydraulic crane; if the rig will sit and perform big lifts at a port, for example, or go onto a barge, then friction is a great option.

It’s challenging, he says, as the biggest obstacle is keeping up with the ever changing landscape of both hydraulic and friction markets. “But because the markets are growing each in their own way, it’s a really good problem to have!” says Stokes.

Mitchell Crane also works just as hard to maintain its strong relationships with its customers, ones it has solidified over the past decades. “It’s cliché, but it’s a partnership,” he says. “What’s distinct about us is the fact that we’re a manufacturer; we manufacture and stock a full line of aftermarket parts for cranes for the friction rigs, and we’re developing a full line for hydraulics – and we do that as we always have by working with customers.”

A manufacturer’s perspective
Mitchell Crane has the ability to make virtually anything in-house, Stokes says, while other crane companies, be they dealers or parts houses or used parts houses, typically run into a road block somewhere with a problem. If the customer has a broken part, or the part is no longer available, what do you do?

“With us it’s different. When we run into that problem we look into making it. ‘How can it be made? Can we make it cheaper? Can we make it stronger? Can we make it better?’ Maybe the customer doesn’t like the price. We talk about options with material, because we’ve got the knowledge to be able to do that because we’re making the products in-house.”

From a manufacturer’s point of view, having the capacity and knowledge in manufacturing makes that customer partnership even more valuable. “We’ve been in business for more than 50 years now, and have faced competition throughout. Customer service is often the competitive edge that makes all the difference. You have to have good customer relationships to have any kind of sustainability in business.”

The same goes for the company’s relationships with its employees: it’s a family business in its fourth generation, and the team works hard to maintain that culture, in an environment where most of the employees have been there more than 10 years.

“We’re close-knit in a family business like ours,” Stokes says. “It’s a little bit different than the corporate world and we like it that way.”

Looking ahead
Over the years, Mitchell Crane has transformed from simply selling hydraulic cranes to being proficient in them, while also continuing to help customers develop ideas for new projects on a daily basis.

“One of our policies is if you can draw it on a napkin we can make it – and we have,” says Stokes. “That’s cool for me, that we’re able to bring any idea to fruition. We work not just in metal but nylon and plastic too. [We will be] going to CONEXPO [this March 10-14] and we’re looking forward to the new opportunities that will come from the show.”

Success for Mitchell Crane will continue to mean growth in the coming years, says Stokes, something that will forever be the company’s policy, as expansion and diversification is a staple of who they are.

“If you’re not growing, you’re not going anywhere,” says Stokes. “Stagnation is the death of small business. You can’t sit around and wait for the phone to ring. You can’t sit around and sell buggies while Ford’s putting out model T’s. You have to grow and you have to expand or you won’t last the next 10 years.”

The post Carving Out its Place in a Niche Market<p class="company">Mitchell Crane</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Scientific Dust Collectors was established in 1979 by a group of company engineers in Louisville, Kentucky. In the late 1970s, as the pollution control industry was beginning to grow, the founders of SDC began to concentrate on developing a technology that could minimize the pollutants released into the air by dust collection equipment. Their solution used a nozzle-based system to clean the filters more efficiently than the competing products available at the time. SDC patented this innovation and has incorporated it into almost every piece of equipment it manufactures. Since that time, the company has developed a broad range of novel technologies and holds fourteen patents.

In 1995, SDC moved its headquarters to Alsip, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Today, the US and Canada are the two primary markets for SDC, although it does have some customers outside of North America. It is a division of Venturedyne, Ltd., a large corporation with multiple divisions in various fields related to pollution control and magnetics detection/separation.

With twenty-five to thirty employees, SDC is still a relatively small company, and this has allowed it to maintain a focus on customer service. “We believe in trying to be responsive, and we listen to what our customers say,” says Gerardi. “Because we are small, we are flexible, and one of the things I am proudest of in all my years here is that many of our customers are repeat customers.”

As the pollution control industry continues to grow, so does SDC. It remains relevant in its market by manufacturing the highest quality equipment, providing efficient cleaning systems, and introducing new products.

“One of the things that we do differently than most other dust collector manufacturers is we make our own stuff. We design, engineer and manufacture our own equipment,” says David Wick, sales manager at SDC. Rather than sending a design to a local job shop, SDC chooses to design, build, and assemble its cleaning equipment in-house to have complete control over the product’s quality.

The company builds quality baghouses, cartridge dust collectors, bin vent dust collectors, high-pressure filter receivers, cyclones, and downdraft tables. SDC’s baghouse dust collector is its primary product. A baghouse is a structure containing a number of cylindrical fabric filter bags that collect a layer of dust on the surface of the fabric until no more air can pass through, at which time the caked particulate is removed and the clean bags are ready to resume filtering. The cleaning is done on-line without having to shut the process down.

Baghouse dust collectors are ideally suited to capture dusts that are larger or more difficult to clean. Dusts that are high temperature or hygroscopic are better suited for collection in baghouse dust collectors. In addition, larger dust sizes (greater than 50 microns) and higher grain loadings (over five grains per cubic foot) are ideal for baghouse units. Dusts that have a tendency to form films that solidify should be handled in fabric baghouse collectors. If hydrocarbons are present in the airstream, the same problems may occur. For these types of applications, baghouses are recommended because the dust cake may require flexing before the cake will burst. Some examples of dust that are collected using fabric filter baghouses are: flyash, coal, cement, lime, fiberglass, paper, plastic, sawdust, and other stringy or irregular shaped dusts.

Cartridge dust collectors are ideally suited to capture granular shaped dusts. These are free-flowing materials that collect on the outside of the cartridge filter pleats and are easily released from the media during the cleaning cycle. Cartridge collectors are ideally suited for smaller particle dust sizes (less than 50 microns) and low grain loading levels (less than five grains per cubic foot). Some examples of dusts that are collected using cartridge collectors are grinding or sandblast applications, welding fumes, laser and plasma cutter fumes, graphite, pharmaceutical powders, and fine chemical powders. These dusts require minimal flexing of the media during the cleaning process; thus, cartridge collectors will work satisfactorily on these products. When the dusts are difficult to handle, hygroscopic, or high temperature, a fabric filter baghouse is a better alternative for trouble-free dust collection and longer filter life.

SDC suggests its performance superiority relies on its patented high velocity cleaning technology and best practices in dust collector manufacturing. The company’s high side inlets, wide filter spacing, inlet baffling, and the elimination of the flow restricting Venturi allow for a guarantee in performance, efficiency, and filter life.

Another advantage offered is energy savings. On generic collectors, the Venturi passes a liquid or gas through a narrowed passage that increases the speed of the flow and reduces its pressure. SDC removes the flow restricting Venturi and is able to save its customers two inches of water column, which is a reduction of two inches of static pressure. In higher-volume dust collection systems, this can significantly save electrical and compressed air costs.

“If a customer has a seventy-five-horsepower motor that they’re running all the time and we can save them two inches of static pressure, that is true electrical savings, and the more they operate and the higher the horsepower being used, the more energy savings are available to them,” says Gerardi. “That’s unique, and we’re the only ones that do it.” As many large manufacturers continue to develop green initiatives and improve lean processes, SDC hopes to make a name for itself as the leading provider of baghouse dust collectors.

The challenge is in raising awareness and educating others in the industry about the benefits of its dust collectors. People too often continue to use traditional methods despite advancements because they are more comfortable with what is familiar. Luckily, there is much more concern about efficiency and proper maintenance these days, and this has increased the company’s customer base. SDC guarantees the effectiveness and longevity of its filters in writing. The company has found a better way to collect dust, and fortunately, new standardization in the industry will help validate its claims.

Prior to 1987, the dust collection industry lacked a clearly defined specification for measuring equipment performance, and the only real standard had been air-to-cloth ratio. The air-to-cloth ratio measures the amount of air that passes through a given area of filter. It can help measure the quality of those filters and can help determine how many filters will be needed, but it does not consider many important factors such as operating conditions and the collector’s design. This lack of a clear specification made it difficult for companies like SDC to accurately quantify equipment performance and effectively compare its products to those of competitors.

In 1987, the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) developed a new specification called Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV), which given heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) engineers the ability to rate air filters on a scale of one to twenty. On the MERV scale, a rating of one through four is used for a low-performance filter like a standard residential air conditioning unit capable of filtering dust and pollen, while twenty represents high-performance filters for use in laboratory environments and clean rooms.

While the MERV rating system was designed as a metric for HVAC equipment, before long, the dust collection industry began using it to rate its own filters. MERV provided a standard for measuring filter performance, but it was not a perfect match for dust collection, having been designed for a completely different application.

Finally, in 2016, ASHRAE released Standard 199, a specification designed explicitly for testing the performance of dust collection equipment. This standard means that dust collection engineers can rate equipment in a strict and thorough six-stage process. Each stage tests a particular aspect of the equipment’s performance under very precise conditions. This results in a rating that can be easily compared to other Standard 199 rated products on the market.

Throughout the history of the dust collection industry, engineers have been forced to fall back on inadequate rating systems, but thanks to ASHRAE’s new standard, SDC can truly demonstrate the quality of its products.

“This is our chance to show the world how great our cleaning system really is. We’re excited about ASHRAE because it’s going to give some of the companies, including some of the large companies that have never heard of Scientific Dust Collectors, a way to objectively look at the test data. Our results aren’t published yet but they will be soon, and we believe the marketplace is going to be pleased with what we will be showing them,” says Gerardi.

Prior to the release of ASHRAE’s Standard 199, SDC did its own testing and published its own results. The company could demonstrate the quality of its products, but because the results came directly from SDC, the company was depending on customers to have trust in the integrity of the data it was releasing. Fortunately, the company has built a good, honest reputation with its customers, and they are confident in its abilities.

Now that the company is utilizing ASHRAE’s standard, customers can be confident in SDC products without having to blindly trust company claims about testing, engineering, and math. The new standard has given the company the opportunity to have a third party(s) verify its claims, and based on the lack of any published results to date, will be the only company to do so.

For the average end user, SDC’s adoption of the standard might mean a significant improvement in production capacity. Companies that generate pollutants have to file for permits based on how much dust and other pollutants are put into the atmosphere. Standard 199 will give SDC’s customers an extremely accurate measurement that could allow them to push production as close to permitted maximums as possible, rather than having to work with estimates and a much larger buffer. It can also enable these companies to file more accurate reports and reduce pollutant output, leading to more efficient operation and an improved bottom line.

“The ability to look at the results and compare that to others helps them say which equipment will work for them. There will be some companies that will be quite uncomfortable with that, but after all these years, we welcome this,” says Gerardi.

The post Demonstrating Efficiency Through New Industry Standards<p class="company">Scientific Dust Collectors</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

One of two things: you throw it in the garbage, or you recycle it by donating, selling or taking it to a local recycling kiosk or your cell carrier for a buy-back program. Cell Phones for Soldiers uses donated mobile phones to give free talk time to active-duty military and veterans, while the Hope Phones campaign trades in your well-used cell to get new technology for mobile medics in developing countries.

What you decide to do with that phone has a significant impact on the environment, says Michael Collins, President and CEO of eCycle Solutions, a company dedicated to recycling electronic waste, or “e-waste,” and safely disposing of non-reusable parts and materials.

Consumption numbers should come as a wakeup call. The Environmental Protection Agency says that if Americans recycled the roughly 130 million cell phones that are disposed of annually, enough energy would be saved to power more than 24,000 homes in a year, Scientific American reports. And for every million cell phones we recycle, we can recover about 35,000 pounds of copper, 800 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold and 30 pounds of palladium – conserving those natural resources and the energy and labour required to mine them.

“Before it starts to break down, the metals and plastics can be toxic to the environment or be a potential fire hazard,” Collins says. “And if you stop and think about it, somewhere in your house you’ve got a drawer. And in that drawer are cords and plugs, and maybe an old tablet or an old computer in a closet someplace.”

It’s his business to be concerned about what people and businesses do with the growing amount of e-waste we produce. Because there’s nothing in that smartphone that can’t be repurposed.

eCycle Solutions, headquartered in Ontario, Canada, is an advocate for environmental stewardship, working closely with provincial collection programs and private partners like Best Buy and Staples to collect used electronics. Established in 2005, the company is also a leading provider of what has become an essential industry.

When your office decides to upgrade everyone’s computers and the workhorse printer, for example, eCycle steps in to remove all private data and break down the devices to take out harmful batteries, mercury, toner, ink and leaded glass for use by the company’s processing partners. Depending on the condition of electronics, some may be upcycled to schools or health facilities where there’s a need.

There’s also a huge emphasis on safety for the company’s 500-plus employees. Every mobile device contains lithium ion batteries, which are a fire hazard and explosive in a steel shredder. Advanced fire suppression systems and quality checks in the teardown lines make sure the chemicals can be safely handled and sent for recycling.

Aftermarket parts like steel and precious metals are sold to distributors for manufacturing new products. Palladium, now a highly valued precious metal, is a key component in exhaust systems in vehicles where it helps turn pollutants into less-damaging carbon dioxide and water vapour. It’s also widely used in dentistry, jewellery and, yes, electronics.

Our planet has limited raw materials, and the shift to supporting the circular economy – where long-lasting design, repair, reuse and remanufacturing protects the earth – is one that everyone has to make, Collins says. “We all have to be conscious of end-of-life use and have buy-in from the whole value chain. It’s really consumer demand driving the ball, and then you go to the front end of that chain as a manufacturer, asking what is he or she actually using to make and build that material?”

The good news is, electronics manufacturers are establishing more sustainable practices. U.S. smart speaker brand Sonos, for example, offers existing customers a 30 percent discount on new devices when their old smart speakers are deactivated and recycled. Similarly, Teracube launched a smartphone with a warranty that promotes recycling. If the phone is damaged, customers can pay a flat fee to get a refurbished phone, while their damaged one is repaired and sold to another buyer.

Legislators are also on board. The European Union, for one, is pushing for the adoption of a standardized charger for smartphones to reduce charger cord waste.

One of the most surprising things for Collins, at the company’s helm for 18 months, is the rapidly changing market for buyers of recycled parts and materials, which directly affects eCycle revenue.

“The downstreams where we take end-of-life product once it’s been recycled, those markets shift and change monthly,” he explains. “There was a glass company in Spain that used to take all of our CRT glass from your laptops or television display screens, using it to enhance ceramic products. So that little glitter you get in a ceramic tile actually comes from glass.”

In mid-2019, the Spanish government cut off those imports, so literally within a matter of 30 to 60 days, eCycle could no longer send that glass to the company and had to scramble to find a new buyer. eCycle also installed glass cutters in two of its facilities to remove the lead contaminant from display screen glass to appeal to a broader range of buyers.

The big challenge, Collins says, is, “how do you maintain your recyclables which represent anywhere from 40 to 50 percent of your revenue?” It’s a balancing act. Managing e-waste involves constantly trawling the global markets, looking for where to send end-of-life, refined, recycled product that meets the certification requirements of the Canadian marketplace.

As smartphones and other electronics become increasingly smaller and lighter, there is less intrinsic value in them from an e-waste commodity standpoint. The next wave of recycling will focus on household appliances, looking at steel, copper and aluminum for re-manufacturing – something that eCycle is already doing and preparing to ramp up even further. In fact, the company has just installed an extraction belt for steel in its Mississauga, Ontario shredding line.

“Microwaves, toasters, your vacuum cleaner, your soda machine – all of these things are now starting to come through the stewardship programs that are picking these up,” Collins says. “As a result, I don’t want those parts and plastics with my electronics recycling. So I’ve got to segregate and separate to make sure that I’ve got the proper commodities going into the proper buckets so I can maximize the value associated with that particular product.”

eCycle is definitely an influencer in the circular economy, helping to shift the mindset of not only individuals with ongoing awareness programs but also manufacturers that may not have considered the aftermarket potential.

“We’re having more discussions with manufacturers who have specialized medical equipment or other support equipment that they’ve utilized and now it’s come to end-of-life. In the past, it’s gone to landfill or has been sold off into a third-party market. Now, they’re actually trying to figure out how to do the right thing for the environment.”

The post Giving Your Ex-Smartphone and Burnt Out Appliances New Life<p class="company">eCycle Solutions</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Throughout the southern part of the country, an impressive rental fleet of over six hundred diesel-powered pumps are delivered quickly when needed, and a team of experts will stay on site until everything is set up and running. The equipment is clean and in top quality mechanical condition prior to delivery, and Holland Pump technicians return to service the pumps biweekly. This regular maintenance considerably reduces the likelihood of downtime.

A malfunctioning pump can shut down an entire project, and delays can be very expensive. When something does go wrong, the company has someone on site within hours.

“One of the primary things that set us apart is that a lot of pump companies only deliver equipment and drop it off. They don’t service or troubleshoot it. It’s just about providing a piece of equipment and picking it up at the end of the job. We’re a much more service-oriented company. We provide a complete service that helps customers finish their jobs faster and save money on the equipment and fuel,” says company President Win Blodgett.

Holland Pump provides each customer with a dedicated consultant who will help them to navigate selecting the most suitable rental equipment and offer a satisfaction guarantee. The company’s consultants can demonstrate a test of Holland equipment compared to any equivalent competitive equipment on the market. If Holland’s pumps cannot outperform the competitor, the customer is guaranteed their money back. The company believes in the quality and the performance of its products, and it stands behind them.

The company has since grown significantly since it was established in 1978, and today, its manufacturing and repair facilities, eight offices, and corporate headquarters employ roughly eighty people.

In March of 2019, the company took on a new investor called XPV Water of Toronto, Canada. XPV has invested roughly $500 million in seventeen companies operating in the water industry. Holland Pump is the first and, so far, the only equipment rental company it has invested in. This new partnership will enable Holland Pump to ramp up its growth over the next five to seven years, and the company is already leveraging the capital toward expanding its capacity, its capabilities, and its geographic reach.

Since the partnership with XPV was formed, Holland has made its first acquisition of a pump and pump accessory rental and sales company in Baton Rouge, Louisiana called Alpha Pump and Equipment, Inc. From this acquisition, Holland has expanded into the Gulf Coast region including Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Alpha Pump brings a fully-qualified, expert staff with additional engineering experience and capabilities, particularly in the petrochemical, environmental, mining, and marine industries.

“It’s great, because they have different skills than we do. They’re very involved in the petrochemical industry, so as we’re integrating we’re trying to cross-fertilize our skill-sets by getting the rest of our sales and service people to learn about what they do and vice versa,” says Blodgett. Expanding into these new sectors is helping the company provide customers with value that was previously outside its capabilities.

As the company works to integrate Alpha Pump into its operation, leadership continues to look at other potential acquisitions. It is building a list of prospects, and it plans to acquire two or three companies annually. With the investment from XPV Water, Holland is positioned for rapid growth in the coming years.

Companies that depend on diesel engines have the challenge of meeting changing emission standards. Diesel engines are a necessary evil in the hydraulic pumping world, but Holland Pump is committed to finding the most efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective approach to running them. It has built a team of experts who understand the industry requirements and can help the company meet them. By incorporating a system of regular training for its employees, and educating its customers, the company is making sure that it can provide the same level of service that the market has become accustomed to while meeting new standards.

Holland Pump works to bring the most innovative pumping equipment to its customers. Last autumn, the company had a booth at an annual technical exhibition hosted by the Water Environment Federation called the Water Environment Federation’s Technical Exhibition and Conference or WEFTEC. It showcased a new product that it is calling a “triple play” pumping solution.

The innovative product consists of a hydraulic power unit that drives three completely different types of pumps. This includes the traditional, hydraulically-driven, submersible pump that has become the standard in a wide range of pumping uses, but it also drives a prime-assisted, suction-lift pump and a hydraulically-driven, positive displacement pump. These pieces of equipment each have unique benefits in certain applications, and Holland’s triple-play system means customers have access to all three options in a single, cost-effective package.

Having one engine that can manage three pump types allows for a substantial reduction in cost over having to run three separate engines. This is particularly important in the current economic climate. As emission standards change, the total ownership cost for running a diesel engine increases, and material and labor costs are increasing alongside that. Diesel engines are expensive to run, and this new innovation enables users to reduce that expense dramatically.

Later this year, Holland pump will showcase this equipment at North America’s largest construction trade show, CONEXPO. The company aims to develop new partnerships and find distributors around the country to expand its reach and to provide more customers with cost savings.

Another way that Holland Pump is working to bring value to customers is through an increased focus on telemetry. As technology evolves, customers are increasingly interested in having more real-time information about the status of their equipment. By integrating telemetry and analytics systems into its products, the company can provide customers with information and vital operational data that can help them predict problems before they occur.

“Companies are trying to get more uptime and more reliability by predicting and preventing failures before they happen. For example, if you have a foundation excavation, our pumps are a pretty small part of the overall cost, but if the pump fails, the whole job site gets flooded. So pumping is critical to the overall success of the project,” says Blodgett.

Using telemetry enables Holland Pump users to detect failures before they occur. Components with a tendency to break or fail are outfitted with sensors that will notify technicians in advance. They can replace whatever is about to break before it does which results in a much faster time to completion and a lower overall project cost.

More than just a manufacturer or a rental company, Holland stands above competitors by working closely with customers to ensure they get the most of their products. Going forward, the company is anticipating further acquisitions and growth. It aims to have one thousand pumps on rent by 2027. Through the high performance of its product line, Holland Pump is quickly becoming a choice provider for quality pump equipment.

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The natural resources industry is currently experiencing a period of downturn and when investment slows, the search for resources, and thus prosperity, is forced to go to greater depths and more remote, northern environments, which pose a unique set of problems for the industry to contend with. Most of the accessible and easily exploited deposits have been explored and tapped, and now, exploration activities are more complex, in more challenging terrain and isolated environments, requiring companies to look deeper to find value, navigating complex relationships to do so.

When costs are high and prices are low, this can have far-reaching implications for the entire mining ecosystem and global supply chain at large, and simply relying on the return of prices and demand cannot be a long-term solution to ensure sustainability and viability for the industry moving forward.

Rising costs, including electricity rates and transportation costs (which increase the further north exploration activities go), weak demand and low prices are diminishing the wealth accumulated in the natural resource sector and are having an impact on prices of secondary commodities as well, such as equipment, homes, cars, computers and other electronic devices as they account for increasing costs. Challenging market conditions are slowing investment dollars and thus, the degree to which new exploration activities are taking place. This is especially challenging for smaller companies that have fewer resources to begin with. Larger companies are better poised to weather downturns like these and can instead focus on existing deposits rather than seeking out new deposits with no promise of return.

Global market conditions, however, are only one part of the equation. Looking to the Canadian and Ontario resource markets more specifically, it’s not just a matter of slowing investment that is posing a challenge: there are countless forces at work contributing to this challenging season for the mining and resources sector.

Mining and resource companies in Ontario are faced with challenges related to regulatory uncertainty, issues of jurisdiction, gaps in infrastructure and high operating costs. Electricity costs alone in the province have increased significantly over the last few years.

Likewise, as easily accessible existing deposits are exploited to capacity, companies are forced to go deeper in long-lived mines with more technical and dangerous conditions, or to go north where deposits are harder to access and more costly due to insufficient infrastructure, uncharted and untamed terrain, and inclement weather.

Ontario has a new mineral development strategy to become the leader in sustainable mineral development and production which will effectively serve as a blueprint to guide the industry to have efficient and effective regulations and to be competitive, innovative, safe and environmentally responsible while also being profitable. Acknowledging the importance of northern infrastructure to the operation of the mining and resource sector, $1 billion in public funds have been dedicated to improving access to the Ring of Fire, which is where countless deposits have been found, including the first major chromite discovery in North America in the James Bay Lowlands.

In the first ten years alone, the government expects the Ring of Fire to generate up to $9.4 billion in gross domestic product (GDP) and to employ more than 5,000 people. The project has the potential to result in significant revenue for every level of government, but in order to reap the benefits, investments must be made and relationships must be built. Investments in transportation, communications and energy infrastructure are necessary to not only explore and retrieve the deposits, but also transport them to market, which will likely include rail, marine and highway transportation infrastructure.

Further to investments in infrastructure, the government is responsible for a clear and streamlined investment process and can work to ensure regulatory certainty by serving as a liaison between investors, various government ministries and First Nations communities whose lands are of interest and must be protected.

Ministerial uncertainty can lead to overlap and confusion regarding who to consult, which poses major barriers to development in northern regions. From a jurisdictional standpoint, natural resource governance falls under provincial jurisdiction, but First Nations relations are with the federal government and to protect their treaty and land rights, they look to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Companies and governments have a duty to consult First Nations, whose traditional territories have protections including the consideration of environmental and social impacts of the project and meaningful engagement in the decision-making process. Projects require, “the free, prior and informed consent of the aboriginal peoples concerned,” according to UN Special Rapporteur James Anaya in 2013 and as such, environmental assessments have become a necessary part of any resource development project.

Matters like these are protected human rights, though there is no real framework from which they are formally safeguarded by the Canadian government, as witnessed in the RCMP’s approach to deal with the ongoing dispute between Wet’suwet’en, Coastal Gas Link and the Canadian Government.

The approach to resource development can be as varied as the number of First Nations’ communities there are, so it is important for companies to consult each to ensure there can be consensus reached as to how a development can move ahead and how the benefits of that project will be distributed. It is also important for the government and investors to respect the rights of the community to those benefits.

There are many examples where the company and the community have come together through consultation and engagement to establish impact benefit agreements (IBA) to ensure interests are protected. IBAs can include compensation arrangements, revenue sharing agreements, and reassurance that the community will have a certain amount of project involvement and control.

Beyond economic benefits that can be derived, communities can benefit from employment; however, just as a lack of infrastructure is an issue when looking at exploration and mining activities, a lack of funding, infrastructure and access sometimes leaves the members of the community undereducated and underskilled for the available positions, meaning the labour is outsourced, as are the benefits therein.

Labour challenges continue to persist as not enough qualified candidates are available, indicating the need for additional educational resources to support northern advancement in this regard. Though the mining sector is the largest private sector employer of First Nations’ people in Canada, there is no correlation between high-paying mining jobs and the health and prosperity of a community. There is no promise that the wealth and prosperity derived from a project will remain in the community; in fact, it can produce the opposite effect. Referred to as the helicopter model of development, when companies come in with helicopters to fly in the necessary capital, supplies and labour to support a project and just as easily fly the resources and the benefits out of the community, no wealth is generated locally. And where there are worker camps to fill gaps in skilled labour, there are higher instances of missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW).

An equitable and sustainable mining and resource industry requires good faith in the consultative process, clearer jurisdictional and regulatory guidelines and an approach to industry that promotes positive outcomes without sacrificing economic prosperity, the natural environment, and the community.

Instead of exploiting a northern location and its resources, developers are best served when they promote collaboration and engagement, and succeed when backed by the government to ensure they have the information, infrastructure and resources necessary to build relationships with First Nations’ communities that can be mutually beneficial.

It is true that the costs of doing business up north are higher and more effort is required to sustainably develop the deposits that are there, but through the entire supply chain, exploration, production and transportation to markets, it is important that any investment brings long-term prosperity and benefit to Canada and northern communities instead of serving as a temporary boost to the GDP.

Innovation will also play a role in the sustainability of mining and resource extraction provincially and Canada-wide in terms of the new technologies, products and approaches that can be developed to address changing market conditions. Norway has proven to be a bright example of how government-led innovation, new technology and modern thinking can result in a profitable and sustainable resource industry.

Only companies with sufficient capital can undertake riskier exploration activities and have the innovative capacity to address the new challenges that emerge when tapping into existing mines, but all companies have the capacity to consult and ensure that projects are developed sustainably, in accordance with human and environmental rights and in compliance with treaty obligations.

Over the next decade, the Canadian government anticipates that there will be upwards of 600 major resource development projects, which means great effort must be taken to ensure that high costs, low prices, jurisdictional challenges, relationship building, innovation and other environmental and technical barriers won’t stand in the way of prosperity and wealth generation for all project stakeholders.

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