Simple Solutions That Work! Issue 14

43 ADVANCED MANUFACTURING SOLUTIONS Continued on next page JIM GAULDIN Chief Sales Engineer Klein Palmer Inc. ARTICLE TAKEAWAY: • Advanced Manufacturing is in our future and can be added to nearly any equipment providing any customer a manufacturing advantage. ADVANCED MANUFACTURING IS HERE! I have the wonderful opportunity to speak with customers on a daily basis. Besides hearing about the unique things that go on in other areas around this country and the world, some customers are responding to an article that I might have written, a quote that has been submitted, the sizing and layout of a system, or even a different thought for a matter at hand. These discussions are great as they exercise our understanding of the jobs we pursue and the challenges at hand. In the end, we walk away with a better understanding of the issues confronting us in the workplace and a small personal connection that helps us understand the differences in our cultures. A little reading on Advanced Manufacturing and some study as to what the general manufacturing industry “thought” it was about over the years has turned up some interesting considerations. You see the mere term Advanced Manufacturing is such that it conjures up all sorts of ideas about what the term might actually mean. The most ambiguous phrase I ran across was the process of using “cutting edge tools and processes to create specialized items for a customer." The phrase “cutting edge” may not be a bad description, but it is definitely hard to quantify, yes? As it turns out, the US government has its own definition and has even provided a webpage for those looking for more information on Advanced Manufacturing. This websites location is the internet address of https://www.manufacturing.gov/ glossary/advanced-manufacturing which is part of the Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office. This site, updated in October 2020, notes that Advanced Manufacturing is the “use of innovative technologies to create existing products and the creation of new products. Advanced manufacturing can include production activities that depend on information, automation, computation, software, sensing, and networking.” On this basis, one may anticipate that their own production capabilities can somehow fit into the definition above. Many ingenious employees have already been doing some of this work over the years in order to make their jobs more efficient. Let’s review some of the Klein equipment and its functions as they relate to the Advanced Manufacturing definition alone. Our standard sand transporters carry some of the features noted above. These features allow for quicker and easier diagnosis of possible unexpected events in the field over time. For example, if a valve were to leak air from wear over time, a pressure sensor sends a signal back to the equipment’s control indicating that the possibility of a malfunctioning discharge vale is present. Back at the control, a control alarm is activated and the control processes through its logic to determine if the equipment should report this error to the industrial control network or consider this data point a onetime event. If this is the first error and no other errors are present over the next X number of cycles, the system can be allowed to continue until another flag is presented as an unexpected action by the equipment’s mechanics.