I had the chance yesterday to sit down with Mike Tuohey, Piab’s Sales and Marketing Communication Manager, in his office in Hingham, Mass. Tuohey’s name is one of the most familiar to me in all of fluid power—he’s been in the industry for 33 years now and has seen a lot of history. But the […]
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Compressed Air Fail: Control problem due to high flow events
By Ron Marshall A sawmill installed a VSD compressor in their compressed air system to save energy and provide better pressure control. The site had two 50-hp fixed speed compressors and a new 75-hp VSD controlled compressor. The system was supposed to be set up so that the VSD compressor would provide the variable flow […]
Building up a distributor network from scratch
When you think of distributor networks, what may come to mind is a network that has been in place for decades. But in the case of Koganei USA, their North American distributor partners are relatively new relationships. Koganei’s parent company has been around for more than 80 years, and had previously used a single domestic […]
Compressed Air Fail: Tale of two plants
By Ron Marshall A protein products processor has two plants, separated by a one hour drive, doing about the same thing. The first plant has a standard 60 hp fixed speed, load/unload compressor with dew point controlled heated air dryer, and a 600-gal receiver. A compressed air assessment was done and the baseline for this […]
PackExpo Day 2: Believe it or not, more robots—and pneumatics, too!
So much happened at this year’s PackExpo Las Vegas, here are some additional thoughts and sights from this year’s very crowded show: The AMK Automation booth was focused on flexible machine automation solutions, both centralized and decentralized. AMK showed a centralized single-cabinet design as well as a working decentralized machine, where a single cabinetless controller from […]
PackExpo Day 1: Smart machines … and a whole lot of robots
Pack Expo’s back at the Las Vegas Convention Center this year, and it’s looking like a good show thus far. PMMI, which runs the annual event, said that this is the largest Las Vegas iteration of the show in history—more than 30,000 attendees are expected, including 5,000 from outside the United States. The exhibit […]
Manufacturer hits green in all the right spots
Koganei Corp., headquarted in Tokyo, has long been an advocate of green engineering principles, from their building grounds to their manufacturing lines to their products. When the company expanded its main manufacturing facility in Komagane, Japan, the so-called “E Building,” in 2011, the idea was hatched to add solar panels to the roof. Two years after […]
A look at Japan’s IFPEX show
Over my 20-plus years covering the fluid power industry, I’ve been to a lot of this industry’s trade shows—including EIGHT IFPEs—talk about feeling old! I have been to shows all over the United States, as well as the U.K., Germany, Brazil, and Canada. So, I was very interested to see my first show in Japan, […]
Compressed Air Fail: A poor dryer choice
A grain sorting facility purchased a new, larger compressor to renew their compressed air system—as well as to prepare for future load additions. The previous compressor was a 50-hp size with a 200-cfm desiccant air dryer with dew point control. To prepare for future needs, a new 75-hp compressor was purchased with a new larger […]
Compressed Air Fail: Valve issues
A milk processing and packaging facility had two independent compressed air systems that were running inefficient modulating style compressors to produce the air needed to keep the compressed air powered machines running smoothly. With the help of their power utility, they were able to consolidate their two systems into one using a new variable speed […]
