Decades back I recall our pump company dress code was relaxed for a weekly “Casual Friday.” I estimate this dress code accommodation occurred in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s time frame. However, denim jeans were specifically excluded. The overly casual appearance of denim jeans would not be appropriate in view of business visitors showing […]
STEM and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
In an ancient time, before STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) was an educational program, how did people get into those fields? STEM was not a “thing” when I went to school. It was DL and sometimes, but not always, DLE. Become a Doctor, Lawyer or Engineer. But engineering was known to equate with math […]
Pump lead times – what to expect
Introduction We live in a world of convenience and instant gratification. When the Wi-Fi goes down, Netflix for that evening is out. This is a serious first world problem. Not surprisingly, initiates to the field of industrial pumps, motors, and valves are often dismayed by the lead times for this equipment. Production and delivery cycles, […]
The User’s Role in Pump Reliability
This introductory 20 minute webinar, with Randal Ferman of Ekwestrel Corp, discusses what operations and maintenance can do to improve pump reliability. Pump reliability directly affects process availability. When the cost of pump downtime in terms of lost production is factored in, the real costs of operating and maintaining pumps can be significantly higher than O&M costs […]
How Precise Is Your Pi?
The date March 14, expressed numerically as 3/14 or 3.14, provides an irresistible excuse to anyone with even a hint of nerdiness in them to associate it with the mathematical constant pi. So you ask ‘how does all of this attention to an abstract number relate to pumps?’ Well first of all, pumps have rotating […]
The Scope of Pump Reliability
Thirty (30) some years ago I skimmed through an exhaustive study of the possible modes a prototype nuclear pump could fail and the probabilities connected with these events. In the report, the first reliability study I had seen, there was no discussion on how to influence or change failure probabilities. Absent a linkage to changing […]