And in America, Rogers Brothers Corporation was founded.

A part of North America’s manufacturing history, the company that began 117 years ago is stronger than ever. Today one of the premier trailer manufacturers in the United States, Rogers Brothers’ early days saw the company involved in projects such as bridges and steel structures.

This changed with the First World War in 1914, with the company taking on troop carriers, and again in World War II when Rogers Brothers focused on tank retriever trailers, earning an award for employee performance and wartime dedication.

Over a century of experience

Over a century after it was established, Rogers Brothers Corporation remains a trusted, fully family-owned and managed business with a staff of about 45. Today, the company is owned by the third and fourth generations of the family: Larry Kulyk and his children, Jay Kulyk, as President, Nick Kulyk, as Vice President and Shop Supervisor, and Beth Hough, as Corporate Secretary.

Larry Kulyk, President of Rogers Brothers Corporation from 1989 to 1994, serves as the company’s Chair of the Board of Directors and Corporate Treasurer.

“He’s the last member of the third generation active in the business and still is an integral part of company management,” says son Jay. “His career at Rogers spans nearly 60 years.”

Other family members also fill key roles at Rogers, including brother-in-law Kyle Glasl, Sales Coordinator, and brother-in-law David Hough, Production Coordinator. Recent years have seen the next generation showing interest in the family business.

Like his dad, Jay has been instrumental in the success of Rogers Brothers. Starting part-time in 1984 and going full-time in 1991, Jay succeeded his uncle, Mark Kulyk, to the presidency of the company in 2012. With a bachelor’s degree in economics from Carnegie Mellon University, Jay combines his knowledge of business and finance with plenty of hands-on, practical know-how about the trailer industry.

The ultimate in trailers®

Rogers Brothers’ slogan is “Since 1905, The Ultimate in Trailers®” for good reason. Manufacturing products for the construction industry, the company also makes trailers used in the mining industry as well as others specifically designed and crafted for a single purpose. This includes trailers made to haul power-generating equipment and transformers, boilers, and even massive steel coils.

Some have a capacity of 20 tons, while detachable gooseneck trailers can handle up to 100 tons. Configurations include front loading, rear loading, modular and other types. Rogers is known for the quality of its manufacturing. Clients also appreciate its ability to customize and paint trailers to meet their requirements.

At its 100,000-square-foot facility in Albion, Pennsylvania, the company produces around 110 to 120 trailers every year, depending on the type. In some years, Rogers has built over 200 trailers, mostly smaller models; other years have seen the company manufacture less than 100, but comprising mostly large units.

“We currently have a strong backlog of orders, and our lead times remain quite long for us—28 to 32 weeks for many trailers,” says Jay Kulyk. “The majority of those are for trailers used in the construction industry to haul excavators, bulldozers, paving machinery, et cetera. We’ve also seen an increase in specially designed trailers used to haul steel coils within steel manufacturing plants.”

Like other companies, Rogers Brothers faced challenges at the peak of the COVID-19 crisis, including an increase in lead times. Nevertheless, the cloud of COVID had a silver lining in the end. When the pandemic hit, the company had a healthy backlog of trailer orders on its books and was looking forward to a good year in 2020.

On March 18, 2020—a week after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic—Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf announced the mandatory shutdown of most businesses that were “not life-sustaining.”

The state published a list of “essential” business categories that could keep operating, and an appeal procedure was established for businesses deemed “non-essential.” The “essential” list was, in many instances, ambiguous, and Kulyk’s read of it at the time left them as a “non-essential” business.

Due to this, the company had no alternative except to temporarily lay off its entire workforce, effective the following day. Despite email requests for clarification from the state of Rogers’ proper business category and filing an appeal for permission to reopen a few days later, the company received no response.

Finally, on May 11, Rogers Brothers, along with many other types of companies, were permitted to reopen, conditional on putting in place certain COVID-related precautions and procedures. “The ‘silver lining’ to this otherwise depressing situation was that we did not lose a single trailer order despite the unexpected two-month delay in our production schedule, and every single Rogers employee reported back to work on the day we were permitted to re-open,” says Kulyk.

A customizing company

From decades of trailer manufacturing expertise to longstanding family values, dedicated staff, and exceptional customer service, Rogers Brothers is an industry leader.

Working with customers on exact needs and specifications, Rogers makes dedicated trailers to special configurations for construction and mining, and also single-purpose products of all sizes, with wide-ranging customization to ensure their clients’ complete satisfaction. Conforming to transportation guidelines and regulations, construction trailers that go on highways are often smaller than those used on mining sites—often impressively larger and heavier.

Market sectors for the company remain strong, especially construction. The business has seen a noticeable uptick in orders for specially designed heavy-duty trailers purpose-built to haul large steel and aluminum coils within manufacturing facilities.

With a notable 120^th anniversary due in just three years, Rogers Brothers Corporation is planning its celebrations. For now, and the future, the company will keep doing what it does best: making the finest trailers in America.

The post Four Generations & Still Trucking<p class="company">Rogers Brothers Corporation</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

From house rooftops to office buildings, manufacturing facilities, and farmers’ fields, solar photovoltaic (PV) installations are everywhere, for plenty of reasons. No longer the niche of mad scientist-types and people craving off-the-grid energy independence, solar PV has made huge gains in the past two decades.

Transforming free sunlight into clean, non-polluting power, solar energy is not only rivalling electricity from fossil fuels like coal and natural gas but is a leader in states like oil-rich Texas.

In the mid-1950s, scientists at Bell Laboratories created the first working solar cells from silicon. Converting sunlight—namely photons—to electricity (voltage), these cells were initially used to power Vanguard and Sputnik satellites in space before finding applications in smaller devices like calculators and wristwatches. In 1963, Japan installed the world’s then-biggest photovoltaic array on a lighthouse, capable of 242 watts.

Solar on the rise

Described simply, silicon solar cells are assembled to make modules, which are connected to create solar installations or systems, which generate a higher voltage.

Covered with a durable transparent material such as tempered glass and framed with aluminum, these photovoltaic modules are sealed for protection from the weather before being mounted to rooftops and wired to electrical connections.

Like most new technologies, solar PVs have had their growing pains, becoming more efficient and compact today than in past versions. Early PV projects, such as the installation at Southern Arizona’s Papago Indian Reservation in 1978 by NASA, were 3.5 kilowatt systems providing residential electricity for 15 homes and pumping community well water.

In the following years, PV cells grew thinner by using materials like gallium arsenide and cadmium telluride with their greater conversion efficiency.

Although rooftop panels tend to be the first thing that comes to mind when we think of solar, there is much more to this renewable technology, including components and subcomponents like mounting hardware, wiring, inverters, controllers, chargers, and batteries needed to store electricity for later use, such as at night.

Benefits that matter

To meet the growing demand for solar panels, more manufacturers are needed to supply the product. This growth in the solar sector is not only benefitting the planet with renewable energy but creating economic benefits through job creation.

According to a report late last year from SEIA, the Solar Energy Industries Association, America’s solar sector is poised for massive growth as part of the White House’s Build Back Better (BBB) Plan. With the aim of meeting America’s climate goals and supporting millions of jobs, clean energy technology—including solar panels, wind turbine blades, and electric vehicles—will be implemented in the United States with American-sourced steel and other materials.

“The Build Back Better legislation will target incentives to grow domestic supply chains in solar, wind, and other critical industries in communities on the frontlines of the energy transition,” says the White House.

While President Joe Biden’s initial USD 3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan was scaled back to $1.7 trillion and morphed into the multi-billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), addressing climate change is still high on the list.

Could this be the most important climate legislation in American history? Investing in clean energy including solar could slash U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions up to 43 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Lower-cost renewable energy, combined with clean energy tax credits, will see prices for solar and other green technologies maintain their decline.

Plenty new under the sun

Under former president Donald Trump, a trade war with China and 30 percent tariffs on foreign-made solar panels saw the sector sustain at least 20,000 job losses in the U.S. But prior to the Trump administration, 2016 was (until then) a record year for solar energy in America.

Recently, however, despite job losses and shelved projects, the industry has made significant gains, especially under the influence of rapidly emerging new technologies.

On the solar panel side, Australian scientists developed an efficient bifacial silicon solar cell that achieves an effective 29 percent output. In China, manufacturers LONGi and JinkoSolar recently created panels made with crystalline silicon, exceeding solar conversion efficiencies of 25 percent, a significant technological breakthrough.

Although China remains the biggest world player in solar manufacturing, controlling about 97 percent of PV manufacturing (pre- and post-cell processes), other countries are challenging its dominance, including India.

Emerging as one of the largest solar PV deployers in the past decade, India is seeing greater interest as a manufacturing hub for solar cells, wafers, modules, and polysilicon, thanks to government-supported solar initiatives. Launching the National Solar Mission in 2010, a renewable 450 GW energy target in 2020, and the recently announced target of 500 GW of non-fossil fuel energy by 2030, and becoming carbon-neutral by 2070, solar module manufacturing is likely to skyrocket in the coming years.

The past year has seen the rise of solar panel installations not only on rooftops but over crops, thanks to agrivoltaics.

Agrivoltaics, also called agrisolar, enable farming land to be double-purposed for both farming and generating solar photovoltaic energy. With the technology already implemented in some U.S. states such as Maine, Europe is embracing the concept through recent projects in Spain, the Netherlands, and other countries.

Seen as a win-win by the solar sector, agrivoltaics allow lands to remain working—with animals grazing under solar panels—while seeing farmers diversify their income.

With no reason to limit the technology to land, the past few months have also seen great interest in floating solar farms. Quicker to install than rooftop panels, floating solar farms produce up to 10 percent more electricity than their land-based counterparts, thanks to the cooling effects of water. While the cost of floating panels is about 10 to 15 percent more than land-based solar, the advantage of panels on water is that systems degrade more slowly.

As materials evolve, solar will advance toward other unique applications. While solar panels will remain, other technologies are underway, including building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs) and solar cell fabrics. Much like floating solar, these innovations result from out-of-the-box thinking.

Seamlessly integrated into structures, BIPVs are not attached to roofs like traditional solar panels, but are parts of roofs, façades, and windows, serving as generating products, protecting buildings from noise and weather, and acting as a layer of insulation.

Unlike rigid PV cells, solar cell fabrics use thin cells which can be integrated into many textiles, from clothing to umbrellas and awnings. About 10 times lighter than regular solar panels, solar fabric lasts longer and doesn’t contain toxic materials. While solar fabric captures less energy than regular panels, it is proving more effective at collecting energy, even on overcast days.

The world is at a crossroads. On one hand, there is a push toward a carbon-reduced future. On the other, we are looking to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and gas. As we move toward more energy-efficient ways of powering the planet, solar is emerging as the clear winner in the world of sustainable energy, surpassing wind, water power, geothermal, and biomass.

The post Here Comes the Sun<p class="company">Manufacturing for Solar Energy</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

The Montreal, Canada-headquartered company also has a strong presence in the world’s food industry where airborne dust from ingredients such as sugar, flour, or spices can ignite and explode, requiring heavy-duty filtration systems that perform and last.

Diversitech’s very nature is about the safety of its employees, its customers, and the end users of the spaces its technology helps to clean. Therefore, health and safety are priorities.

“Safety is critical to everything we do. Every manufacturing business… that buys a solution from us is not only getting a best-in-class solution for a specific air quality challenge. It is also going to be fully compliant with federal regulations,” says Theo Rigas, Marketing Director.

Protecting human airways from airborne contaminants through ergonomically designed, capture-at-source filtration systems saves lives and goes a long way toward keeping people healthy. To this end, it prides itself on being compliant with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), as these are the two most prominent safety keepers of the industries the company serves.

The Diversitech story goes back to 1984 when the company was established by the late Marvin Simms to serve the air filtration market. The air filtration company operated from his house during the early years, buying and selling air filtration units to hospitality establishments during a time when smoking indoors was still legal. That evolved into Simms designing custom units based on customer needs that were unmet by the products on the market at the time. Later, he took the plunge and collaborated with others to create several innovative prototypes.

Several decades later, the company was bought by the Swedish air filtration conglomerate Absolent Air Care Group in 2019, making Diversitech a sister company to around ten companies that all specialize in complementary fields. One example is Quatro Air, which serves the medical industry with niche filtration products for hospitals, dental facilities, optometrists, and others.

“We offer a wide range of [filtration] products depending on the application. Each company has a specific niche. The Absolent mission is to have a wide range of companies under its umbrella that can provide a solution for virtually any industry and scenario,” says Rigas.

This deep knowledge spread across several operations within the parent firm gives Diversitech access to a pool of resources that are arguably unmatched by competitors, so whatever a client’s filtration requirements, Diversitech has the answer. To fulfill as many client requirements as possible, it has comprehensive dust collection and fume extraction solutions.

The company’s standard boxed filtration systems are fully supported by custom engineering. There are also downdraft tables in several sizes, complete with dust and fume extraction technology and add-ons to suit their purposes, such as grinding, deburring or welding. Its units are also entirely scalable, making them perfect for central dust collection systems.

The parent company, Absolent Air Care Group, offers mainly smart technology that is almost entirely based on the internet of things (IoT). As a result, Diversitech is increasingly working toward including IoT functions in its systems. That includes alerts for filter replacement, optimizing running time, performance, and longevity of filters and machines.

One of its proudest guarantees is its excellent field service. “In the past three to four years, we have gone through a transformation in terms of focusing on the customer experience. We realize that providing a great customer experience is critical,” Rigas says. “Therefore, we strive to provide great post-sales support.”

Ultimately, its after-sales protocol turns customers into longstanding business partners whose success becomes synonymous with its own. The team also goes out of its way to find creative and effective ways to make owning and running Diversitech products a joy.

This philosophy extended to how the company weathered the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis. During this time, the group’s strength lay in its diverse range of products that each company could draw from to serve clients’ changing needs in improved ways. One example of such a product is the AF Series of HEPA Air Purifiers created by Quatro Air, which Diversitech could supply to its customers during this time.

“We identified different needs in the market. All things considered, COVID was certainly challenging for us, but I think all of us in the organization are proud of how we pulled through. We realize that a lot of the sacrifices we made, while painful at the time, helped us survive,” says Rigas. Although costs are rising, the company is doing all it can to buffer its clients from the current wave of inflation.

Diversitech is devoted to keeping up with the times. Part of this includes moving increasingly toward environmental sustainability. It is phasing out its use of printed materials including marketing brochures, owners’ manuals, and the like. These are being replaced with technologies such as QR codes and web listings with detailed outlays of product specifications. The effort makes brochures and manuals obsolete and allows for improved control over informational materials with easy updates and quick, real-time improvements. Its invoicing system will soon follow suit, and while this is a small beginning, there is much more to come.

Green Filter Cleaning machine remains a favourite. The machine cleans filter cartridges, extending their lifespan up to five or six times the length of their original use. As a result, this machine reduces the number of filters discarded in landfill and saves money.

“Environmental responsibility has always been near and dear to us at Diversitech, and we try to reflect that in the way that we operate. Our parent company Absolent is very big on the environment and being leaders in what we do. We strive to reflect that in all of our efforts,” Rigas confirms. This commitment is present in everything the team touches.

Rigas could not be more impressed by the company’s powerful team of professionals. “I say this with sincere honesty. I have never worked with a more passionate group of people in my career. We all have a passion for what we do. We have a passion for the products we sell, and we’re equally passionate about ensuring our customers are happy with the solutions we provide,” he says.

These people have created a space where sharing thoughts and ideas are commonplace and very much invited. This has brought the company shining success in a highly competitive market. “That is something you cannot necessarily teach. I have been part of organizations that were very goal-oriented, and yes, we must drive goals and profit, but without the passion and the willingness to go the extra mile, you do not get the same level of results that we have experienced,” he adds.

Having a brilliant team of engineers collaborating with the rest of its team gives the company abilities that its competitors often fail to display. It is most evident in the impressive number of projects it has completed for customers where other providers from the same industry could only throw their hands into the air for lack of executable, scalable solutions.

According to Rigas, the company’s future balances on young talent and so it promotes such talent from within. The result has made it tremendously strong as the approach allows people to develop a well-rounded, solid understanding of every department, what it does, and how it functions. It has become a valuable way of developing depth across all its operations.

The company’s concern with service delivery reaches far beyond the confines of its clientele; it also extends to the people of Quebec and beyond. One way in which the company serves communities found expression in a beautifully thoughtful way recently. Its late founder’s family chose to honour his legacy in the form of the Martin Simms Foundation for Cancer Research. Simms tragically passed away from lung cancer at age seventy-two in December last year, leaving behind many people who loved him and continue to hold his memory dear. The foundation raises funds for cancer research. And so, the team has set out to host a golf day to help fund its civic work.

The company remains agile and focuses on market trends and its customers’ air filtration needs, even the most complex. Ease of use and engagement are constant drivers of its customer experience design. Working studiously toward becoming a global leader in industrial dust and fume extraction, it aims to become and remain a household name around the world.

“It is about teamwork. At Diversitech, we realize that being a smaller company of only sixty-five or so employees, for us to compete with a lot of the larger competitors out there, we have to take stock of our people,” Rigas says. “It is our people who are going to drive the business with their ideas and dedication. They have always been our greatest resource,” he adds confidently.

Thanks to its superb quality and customer service, the company was amongst Canada’s top 500 fastest-growing firms in 2018 and 2019, and it has also expanded its presence across the United States. Nurturing and maintaining significant relationships with dealers and distributors and helping them optimize their companies are where the future lies for this dynamic team.

The post A Breath of Fresh Air<p class="company">Diversitech</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Perhaps the most important question to ask when considering automation is what the benefits are. “Manual processes are often prone to less consistency, less productivity, and higher cycle times,” explains Noah Smith, Director of Business Development. “Automation can provide error-proofing throughout the assembly and testing process, allowing complicated, intricate processes to be more repeatable.”

Project Engineer Brian Engle adds, “we’re seeing a lot of increased demand for different medical devices and so things that were being done by hand by operators before aren’t going to be able to be done like that in the future because it would require a very, very large amount of operators to do that. So the ability to be able to shift away from manual processes is a big benefit. And by doing that you also reduce human error, so it makes it a more robust solution to building your product. You’re able to take more of your raw material and turn it into quality final product with fewer rejects.”

Of course, the use of automation varies from industry to industry, so the medical device sector requires its own unique solutions. “When applying automation to a medical device manufacturer, it takes a different approach than it would if you were looking to apply it to automotive—they have different goals, product lifecycles, et cetera,” Smith points out.

“Automation is not a one-size-fits-all answer. Automation in the medical device industry includes everything from manual stations to full production lines. Generally speaking, the focus for automation in this industry is about scaling up production and increasing quality.”

Certainly, there are a number of common misconceptions about automation in the medical device industry. The first is that automation is expensive. This belief does have some truth, but does not account for the full picture. “On the face, it is more expensive than an operator,” Smith says. “But, the price largely depends on what you are trying to accomplish and what level of automation you need. Also, how many operators will you need for efficiency and reliability? There’s always more to the cost conversation.”

People typically envision “this complex system with lots of moving parts and lots of robots and elements like that,” Engle says. “But it’s really dependent on the level of automation that you are looking to get.” A fully automated production line will have a high upfront cost, but that is far from the only option. “We start on a smaller scale with our customers so it’s not as expensive and if they do want to ramp up, we can ramp up to be more automated. That way they can see the benefits of automation on a small scale before moving on to a large scale,” Engle says.

With any level of automation, there may be “more upfront cost, but it can save you money later down the road,” Engle adds. Also notable is that the cost of robots has fallen dramatically. “In the last few years, there are robots for simple tasks that are closer to $7,500 versus $20,000 to $30,000 that we’ve seen in the past,” Smith says. “In some cases, they can be less expensive than the pick and place or traditional solutions.”

Another common misconception is that robots replace humans. “In fact, many medical device manufacturers aren’t looking to reduce their workforce,” Smith says. “What they actually want to accomplish and what automation can help achieve is freeing up operators for other tasks or projects.”

Some medical device manufacturers believe they simply don’t have the floor space to support an automated system. In fact, the opposite can be true—sometimes automation can actually save space. “That’s dependent on the level of automation,” Engle says. “We look to improve processes along the way or combine processes so you can have one machine that does four different tasks instead of having four machines that each do one task. So there are a lot of ways to actually have it use up less floor space.”

Another misconception is that automation is not flexible. “While this can be true, it depends on the component used,” Smith says. “For example, feeders used to be designed to fit one part. Now you can re-train and use flex feeders instead of replacing them when the part changes.”

Engle elaborates, “We do a couple of different things here that allow our customers to make their machines more flexible. A lot of times we’ll have machines that can run various different types of products on them. We talk with our customers upfront to get a feel for what they need and we can design that in.” As a result, customers are often surprised at the increased flexibility they enjoy after upgrading to automation. “There’s actually a lot of flexibility once you make that dive into automation,” Engle says.

On the other hand, people may assume that automation has more flexibility than it actually does. “On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have some customers who believe automation can solve anything,” Smith says. “Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Some processes are too delicate. When this happens, we try to develop solutions; if automation isn’t a good fit, we recommend doing something else and explain why.”

Engle explains, “that can happen when you have products with extreme variations in tolerance. It’s sometimes a little bit harder to handle for automation if there’s a very, very delicate or very, very complex task. The level of automation required to do that may be too expensive for our customers to want to do; they would just rely on having the operator do it. So there are definitely times where automation isn’t the right answer, but we work with our customers to determine which processes they want automated. We will help guide them to which processes will be easiest and best to automate, and we’ll get them the best return on their investment.”

Another common concern is that automation is too complex for operators and maintenance teams to handle. To this end, Invotec offers extended support to customers who need it, though many will be surprised to find the system is easier to operate and maintain than anticipated.

The automation industry is facing several ongoing challenges beyond the need to overcome these common misconceptions. “Invotec is not immune to the global supply chain issues facing nearly every industry, and minimizing the impact of material delays is one of our largest challenges currently,” Smith says. “We are doing this through a flexible design approach [by] identifying long-lead items upfront and investigating alternative design approaches. We’re also leveraging our group purchasing power through sister companies within the HAHN Group. Managers from all divisions meet on a regular basis to discuss emerging shortages and available regional stock.”

While the pandemic brought challenges to the industry, its impact also increased demand for automation. “One trend we’ve noticed lately is that customers are more willing or eager to adopt these changes since the COVID pandemic,” Smith says. “At its peak, manufacturers with manual processes or lines of 20 operators were struggling to maintain operations due to social distancing guidelines and safety protocols—which was especially problematic given that they are making medical devices. Those same customers are now more invested in discovering how their critical processes can be automated or semi-automated to help prevent major shutdowns.”

The future looks exciting for this rapidly evolving industry. “Technology changes and improves faster now than it ever has before,” Smith says. Engle adds, “As more and more products are being developed and more and more products are being used, demand keeps increasing.” Invotec is well placed to continue leading the industry with the most advanced solutions to meet the latest demands within the medical device industry.

The post Advancing Automation<p class="company">Invotec</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

With ownership of 3.8 million square feet of production facilities spread across North America and more than 50 independent acquired enterprises, Canerector serves clients in a variety of international end markets in industrial product design, engineering, fabrication, machining, casting, and construction in areas including aerospace, agriculture, energy, forestry, infrastructure, mining, nuclear, and transportation.

To date, the company has completed more than 75 acquisitions and mergers, constantly striving to support and respect each company’s unique histories, legacies, and teams who founded them, along with providing them the freedom to run independently and devise their own plans by minimizing bureaucracy and centralization.

“Every year, in a different North American location, we have a leadership conference where we host the Presidents and General Managers of our businesses and their spouses,” says Daniel Lee, Vice President of Canerector, who also leads the company’s Mergers and Acquisitions activities. “This year being the 75^th anniversary. We celebrated in Toronto, which is where our head office is headquartered.”

Along with the almost four million square feet of manufacturing facilities, Canerector boasts more than 2,500 employees, third generation family ownership, and almost $1 billion in revenue—while being completely debt-free.

“It’s been quite a journey through our history,” says Lee. “We’re a very large and diversified company.”

Originally based in Montreal, the company’s predecessor business, Canadian Erectors Limited, was established in 1947 by three partners. When they decided to retire after a long and successful run, company leader Stan Hawkins enlisted son Cecil to help buy them out. Through Cecil’s leadership, the company transformed into Canerector, experienced a period of expansion through acquisition, and quickly evolved into a geographically diverse operation thanks in part to Cecil’s vision for growth. Canerector leadership has now passed the third generation, with Amanda Hawkins becoming CEO in 2015, bringing new energy and a longer horizon for reinvestment, expansion, and improvement.

“It is a family company with a reinvigorated appetite for growth,” Lee says.

This growth included acquisitions, with the company making its first in 1979 and another in 1980, purchasing two very successful businesses that operated in markets quite different from the original Canerector and spurring the company to continue down the acquisition path. The biggest challenge came in 1983 following the purchase of a publicly traded company with three businesses, which incurred significant debt.

“That was a very difficult period in our history,” says Lee. “We were taught critical business lessons and were forced to evolve quickly from a single business to a much larger, geographically diverse enterprise.”

Although forced to close the original Montreal location in 1984, Canerector emerged tougher and stronger than ever, realizing it had very little margin for error.

“We learned some very hard lessons, such as if you embark on restructuring, you have to move quickly, act quickly and make decisions quickly,” Lee says. “At the time, the changes took five years to complete; in hindsight, this is something that could have been done in six months. Those five years cost the company a lot of resources, and were challenging and difficult for everybody.”

This spurred the company to shift its approach to one of simplifying and making business decisions in a more expeditious manner.

“From that, Canerector the holding company was born,” Lee says. “We went through a period of acquiring a lot of companies, and Canerector grew enormously under Cecil’s watch. We’ve acquired over 70 companies during our history and some of them have been merged, so we now have 50 companies in total.”

Keeping faithful to the family tradition, in the early 2000s, Cecil’s daughter Amanda Hawkins started working in various companies in the Canerector portfolio, from the plant to the office environment, learning everything about the business in different companies across Canada and the United States. Following further involvement in management roles, Amanda became Canerector’s CEO, rounding out three generations of company history.

“This is one of the factors that we think separates us from other companies,” Lee says. “We can relate to and understand family companies. A lot of companies who have owners who have sold to us are family companies themselves, and we want to continue that legacy.”

As a holding company, Canerector doesn’t rename the companies it acquires, a fact that Lee thinks is especially appealing to owners. “They get to exit their business, but not the legacy they built, the name. When we buy the company we usually buy the real estate also,” he says. “That demonstrates to our employees and our customers that we’re not going away. It demonstrates our long-term commitment.”

Acquisitions also aren’t moved offshore, allowing the manufacturing to remain where it is.

“If you’re an owner who built this company and you’re selling to Canerector, one of the benefits is you could be driving down that same road 20 to 30 years later and your company name will still be right there at that same location,” Lee says. “I think family companies can understand and value that. This commitment to legacy and history truly makes Canerector different.”

In 1990, Canerector made its first U.S. acquisition and began expansion into the States, where it now owns many businesses.

“Canerector has a very strong balance sheet,” Lee says. “Being debt-free really helps us. We have a decentralized management philosophy. The companies we acquire are led by a local President or General Manager, so it’s not the Canerector head office running everything. When we buy a company we want to make sure there’s a strong leader and management team locally.”

This strategy allows a business located anywhere in North America to adapt to the situation, know the local market, and maintain localized decision making relevant to their geographic region.

It’s important for business owners who are looking to sell or exit their business to understand the distinct difference between selling to Canerector and private equity firms. “Private equity often uses borrowed money to leverage, whereas Canerector is a family office with no debt. Our offers are not contingent on debt financing and we pay cash for our acquired companies,” Lee says. “Private equity companies are going to leverage the assets; they’re going to load a whole bunch of debt to any acquired company so they can buy more companies.”

Canerector doesn’t employ leverage at all, meaning its deal isn’t dependent upon financing or the banks.

“If we like a company and we come to terms, we can close the deal very quickly,” says Lee. “One big benefit is we can be very expeditious in closing because we’re independent and financially strong. We don’t rely on a bank or financial institution to fund or drive our deals.”

Private equity companies also often implement extreme cost cutting to show a better return on investment to investors and shareholders, whereas Canerector looks to build value and invest in long-term growth.

“We are willing to take the earnings generated from the business and use it to reinvest in that company for growth. We believe in organic growth and being there for the long haul, not just some short-term [approach] of using the company, squeezing all costs out, chopping it up and selling it.”

With the belief that many private equity firms end up destroying long-term value, Canerector keeps companies decentralized and encourages entrepreneurialism, a viewpoint central to its philosophy and one that will benefit shareholders and employee in the long term.

“Often when a company is purchased by a private equity [firm] or even a public company, they may flip the company in three to five to seven years. Canerector holds long-term. In fact, we’ve only sold one company that we’ve ever purchased,” says Lee.

“Anyone who’s owned their own business has, at some point, had to face a number of issues that only a business owner would understand, including thinking about access to funding and cash flow, issues Canerector fully appreciates,” he adds.

“You could argue that a lot of larger publicly traded companies have a lot of bureaucracy and family-owned businesses need to be nimble, keep things simple and make decisions quickly,” he adds. “If you have too much bureaucracy or you lack access to funding, that creates an inability to act quickly and take advantage of market conditions.” Small companies understand that those both inhibit growth.

Canerector understands growth well, with big plans in the coming years for acquisitions and expansion after emerging from COVID.

“We feel we’ve come out of COVID a much stronger company with excellent best practices, and positioned for strong growth going forward,” says Lee. “We’re now investing in our sales organizations so we can reach new markets.”

It was a tough period, but the company emerged leaner than before, and hopes to add at least one to two companies a year going forward, he says.

The company not only likes to build value, it also has a very strong incentive plan, not just for the president, but for department managers and shop employees. “We believe incentivizing our employees helps align their goals with our goals,” says Lee.

Canerector is also continuing to invest in its companies, having spent a significant amount on capital expenditures for new equipment so it can extensively tackle purchases and improve manufacturing efficiency. “We’re very much in a position right now for growth,” Lee says. “The next couple of years are about growing organically by investing in new equipment, sales teams and then growing through acquisition and adding new companies to the Canerector family.”

The post Holding Steady: Canerector Keeps Business All in the Family<p class="company">Canerector</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

The acquisition of Technifor and Vision Numeric in the early 2000s solidified Gravotech’s place as a global leader in the identification markets, offering a complete suite of engraving and traceability solutions.

Today, Gravotech boasts a presence in 18 different countries through its subsidiaries and serves customers in more than 70 countries. The company’s collaborators speak 35 different languages each day to deliver services to over 200,000 users. “A vast global footprint of learned and shared knowledge spanning 95 years, built from various applications, keeps Gravotech the industry leader in its fields,” says Business Manager Don Kirch.

Gravotech’s global headquarters is located in Lyon, in the south of France. The company also has three main regional manufacturing hubs in Atlanta, Shanghai, and Troyes, a city strategically located close to Paris. From these locations, the company manufactures laser hardware, including galvo and gantry, rotary CNC engraving machines, dot peen and scribing machines, plastic laminates for indoor and outdoor signage, labels, control panels, serial plates, and accessories. The company also owns and develops software specifically designed for engraving, cutting, traceability, and 3D mold and die making, enabling Gravotech to deliver a complete suite of solutions for multiple sectors and needs.

“Gravotech has become a comprehensive yet nimble force, servicing various industries with limitless applications,” says Kirch. This wide service range includes the automotive and aerospace markets, industrial control panels, machine original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), electrical panels, part marking, serial plates and signage, jewelry, gifts, sporting goods, awards recognition, and luxury brands.

Traceability has become increasingly important, and Gravotech is able to meet that need. “In line with the digital transformation of industrial manufacturing, the permanent marking of parts is essential today so that they can be identified and traced in the production flow and throughout their life cycle,” Kirch says. “As the inventor of dot peen marking in 1985, Gravotech is historically known as the world’s leading manufacturer of permanent dot peen marks, scribing and laser marking machines for the traceability and identification of industrial parts within various materials, [including] metals, plastics, and other organic elements,” he shares.

“Since the dot peen marking technology invention 40 years ago, Gravotech has continued to innovate, and its XF510p pneumatic dot peen marking machine takes the crown for being the smallest and fastest on the market, all while meeting high standards of precision.”

The remarkably compact XF510p is ideal for restricted spaces. “The integration is made simple, in any position or direction, reducing the overall time and cost of installation,” Kirch says. “With a marking speed of 12 characters per second, its effectiveness sets new standards for speed while being able to work uninterrupted on production lines,” he explains.

“Our powerful and high-quality industrial laser engravers perform extremely accurate and defined markings fast and efficiently,” Kirch continues. “Compact, with great input communication links and simple to integrate into a manufacturing process, this heavy-duty design, based on a cast aluminum structure, [has] high-quality optical components, guaranteed strength, and minimal maintenance. Whether integrated in a production line or as a robotic cell, the integrated laser implementation is easy in any mounting position and can be oriented toward the part surface to significantly reduce installation setting times and overall tooling costs.”

Gravotech offers retail engraving through mobile designers and websites, fulfillment centers, and retail stores. The goal is “to make the customer personalization experience an efficient yet memorable one,” Kirch says. The process “makes for an easy and fun” shopping experience, “while expanding the retailer’s product line offering with unique engraving-personalization, only limited to the customer’s imagination, without expanding inventory or shelf space.”

Machine customization and easy-to-use software makes Gravotech’s retail personalization possible. After the customer enters an order via a mobile phone, kiosk or website, then it goes to the cloud. A scan of the bar code (created automatically when the consumer enters their order) pulls the corresponding message into the machine, to be engraved on the product, saving a “tremendous” amount on “overhead, job layout, job creation, training costs, mistakes, scrap, order entry, production processing times and more, while improving the customer interactive experience and offering choices of in-store pick-up or home delivery,” says Kirch. Robotic integrations are also available for even further overhead savings.

For industrial purposes, Gravotech’s CNC engravers can engrave and cut a range of materials including tool steel for dies, stainless steel for elevator panels, and wood, urethane, and plastics for signs, fixtures, and fabricated components. Galvo and gantry lasers are a popular choice for production engraving, cutting, and traceability marking applications. “Lasers excel in applying detailed logos, text, serialization, linear barcodes, UID, data matrix and QR codes with embedded information to include serial and lot numbers, drawing or job numbers, and security codes needed for traceability, life cycle, or OEM component identification,” Kirch explains. “The wide range of laser technologies offered by Gravotech gives you the ability to polish, anneal, mark, etch, texturize, ablate, or cut a wide range of materials with very high precision.”

Hybrid and fiber lasers are ideal for metal marking, in addition to removing the metal surface or cutting through metal for fabrication. Green lasers or ‘cold marking’ lasers apply high contrast marks on high quality finished plastics and precious metals without the risk of heat damage. CO2 lasers work well for cutting, engraving, and decorating a variety of materials and popular retail products. “With output power up to 150 watts, CO2 lasers can cut one inch thick acrylic in a single pass, resulting in a flame polished edge, and yet have the control to only release enough power to apply a high-resolution photograph onto the surface of paper or painted metal,” Kirch describes.

The company also manufactures and distributes a full range of engraving materials and accessories for indoor and outdoor applications in matte, satin, glossy, and textured finishes. Flame-resistant, temperature-resistant, and chemical-resistant materials are available. And, in addition to standard formats, the company provides custom colors, sizes, shapes, and more.

All Gravotech materials are of the highest quality. Raw materials are 100 percent prime, meaning only virgin materials are used, with no regrinds. Cap consistency is maintained by extruding the cap and core separately, then laminating the layers together after each layer has cooled and solidified, rather than using the cheaper coextrusion method. Color consistency is also carefully maintained, as is sheet flatness. By using an in-line extrusion process, the material is never rolled, eliminating any tendency to curl.

Indeed, not all consumers are aware of just how important it is to use quality materials. “Gravotech understands color and cap consistency as very important traits,” Kirch says. Without this detail focus in material manufacturing, re-running a job becomes a risk, because halfway through completion, the cut didn’t reach all the way through the cap and provide a consistent, brilliant color change. It can be especially frustrating after a large matrixed job runs for over an hour. Engraving deeper to compensate can add wear to cutters, reduce productivity, and ‘bleed’ characters together, creating poor quality finished product.

Producing a better product is what Gravotech does best—and has been doing for nearly a century. With a long history of success and an enduring commitment to quality, the company has positioned itself to remain at the head of the pack for many more decades to come. “Both in-house and along with technology-leading partners, Gravotech has continued to innovate and invest into the future,” says Kirch.

The post Making Its Mark<p class="company">Gravotech</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

The turnkey manufacturer supplies local and international clients with top-quality, high-precision computer numerical control (CNC) machines that focus on internal and external thread grinding and other automation functions like milling. Its product selection is as diverse as its clientele, and there are many options to suit clients in the oil and gas, automotive, medical, and aerospace industries.

The company is especially sought-after for its thread grinding machinery that maintains close tolerances and has exceptionally long lifespans, so investing in a Drake machine means cultivating a lifetime relationship with the company. The company ascribes the precision and longevity of its machines to purpose-built motors that are able to withstand even the most demanding applications, provided that the machines are serviced regularly to prevent unnecessary damage and wear, of course.

Rather than the standard servo motors, the company uses linear motors in its machines. Some of the advantages of using the custom-built linear motor drive systems include their accuracy, low maintenance needs, and long lifespans. These motors are more energy efficient and are used to create external threads on taps, gages, electronic steering components, thread rolls and rotor parts.

The company’s fabrication machines are complemented by its offering of preventative maintenance services provided by seasoned field support experts around the world, from associated facilities as far afield as India, Germany, and Taiwan. It also provides original equipment manufacturing components.

In addition, it prides itself on ensuring that its machines reliably operate at full capacity, keeping downtime to an absolute minimum so that its equipment gives clients the longevity, performance, and output that they have come to expect from Drake machines.

All Drake service engagements come with fifty-point inspections that have made it known for thoroughness and effectiveness. It also offers control system renewals to stretch the lifespan of its equipment even further. In the retrofit, outdated or obsolete controls are replaced on otherwise healthy machines with a range of new components such as new electrical panels, PartSmart™ menu-driven software to upgrade to the Drake CS:R.

The improvement ensures that all existing processes can be programmed and includes operator training. “Your current custom routines and thread form functionality can be converted to the new control,” states the company website.

Its clients could not be happier as is clear from the customer praise Drake Manufacturing shares on social media. “My 12×45 thread grinder is the heart of my manufacturing operations. High-precision, accurate, and efficient thread grinding is paramount to the success of my business and the quality of my product line,” Doug Kremer, President of Kremer Precision, LLC IN Phoenix, Arizona, is quoted as saying on twitter.

“Drake Manufacturing has the expertise to complete a thorough and precise CS:R [-] and that made choosing them an easy decision. I am extremely satisfied with my decision to choose Drake Manufacturing for my CS:R,” he continues.

Drake machines are true workhorses fabricated from quality materials. Its website also provides detailed product specifications, making it a worthwhile go-to for product information.

To ensure that its products adhere to industry standards, protecting buyers and end users, the company’s services are in line with International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) protocols, as well as those of the International Standards Organisation (ISO) and other electrical standards such as NFPA-79, a standard set by the National Fire Protection Association.

There are several ways in which to achieve threads on metal, including an array of turning equipment, cutters, and rollers, none of which provide the same tolerances, accuracy, and consistency that Drake Manufacturing’s thread grinding machinery can.

The company is continuously innovating, like with acoustic emissions monitoring (AEM), for instance. This technology improves machine precision and output even further by running non-destructive tests that measure ultrasonic stress waves created when material deforms under applied pressure to detect damage or defects that would otherwise be undetectable. This gave rise to several unique products, including the Drake automatic wheel balancer and its Touch Dress™ and Exact Dress™ products.

Drake Manufacturing is big on the international trade show circuit and is often represented at shows like the International Power Transmission Expo (IPTEX), last held in 2020 in Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, India. There are also the Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association Show (IMTEX); the China International Machine Tool Show (CIMT), which has hosted nearly twenty shows since its inception in 1989; and TIMTOS, the Taipei International Machine Tool Trade Show in Taiwan. Its teams are always out and about making contacts and inviting people to join the Drake Manufacturing family.

The company is also of value to its local community as it is always on the lookout for new talent. From electricians to engineers, this computer numerical control leader is looking to hire people who are qualified and match its culture of dedication to service. Two of the best aspects of working for Drake Manufacturing listed by former employees are its great people and its work atmosphere.

There is also room for its people to grow. Like when former employee, Adam Reed, was recognized as Best Young Professional Engineer in 2018 and nominated for the ‘Community Impact Award’ at the Mahoning Valley Engineer of the Year Awards, an event held by Tech Belt Energy Innovation Center in collaboration with the Valley Alliance for Science and Technology.

Drake Manufacturing prides itself on giving customers what they need, where and when they need it, and at a price that suits them. Irrespective of the tumultuous global economic climate of recent years, its level of customer care has secured the company’s spot as one of the world’s best. The company’s drive for excellence will most certainly lead it safely through the next half-century ahead.

The post Maintaining Tight Tolerances – Fifty Years of CNC Excellence<p class="company">Drake Manufacturing</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

One practice baked into company culture is implementing 100 percent testing into its quality control procedures. Director of Air Logic John Hayden admits that there are arguments against that type of policy, as many industries do sample testing under 100 percent due to a low rate of failure; however, many of the industries to which Air Logic sells are hyper-critical of quality, such as ventilators or companies dealing in chemical dilution, so every single part must be working correctly in important products like these.

“A small chance of failure could lead to someone getting sick, [so] we strategically work flow rate checks into automation processes because it’s the right thing to do,” he affirms. Everything is done in-house as it is vertically integrated from a molding standpoint, and it designs its own parts and tooling.

Air Logic is itself a division of plastic injection molding company Knapp Manufacturing, Inc. Before it owned Air Logic, Knapp was known as a family-owned company that created molded components for Wisconsin-based manufacturer Johnson Controls since the 1960s.

Johnson Controls primarily built parts related to heating and air conditioning, and at the time, had a control system based on pneumatics, which were more common before microcontrollers and electro-sensors. In 1975, Johnson Controls switched to these electronic and micro-controller systems and sold the pneumatic line to Knapp, which eventually established Air Logic as its division.

Jay Haertel, Jon Boticki, and David Horvath purchased the company from the Knapp Family in 1993 and became its three principal owners. Then, roughly six years ago, John Korako was hired to implement a new internal management team at the company. In 2019, the team officially got up and running in brand new offices, with Korako himself promoted to company president in October 2021. This allowed Haertel, Boticki, and Horvath to step away from daily duties as the new management team now fully running the business. The three still serve as members of the company’s board.

Director of Air Logic John Hayden describes the three previous owners as down-to-earth people who began working for Air Logic while fresh out of high school and, as such, never had the chance to work for bigger companies. The company’s new management team is a mix of home-grown talent and people from larger corporate companies with business systems experience. So far, things have gone smoothly in the transition thanks to the efforts of the three.

The company operates with respect to three core values: dignity, respect, and trust. Hayden has seen Air Logic and its employees exhibit all three in spades, but the one he has seen perhaps most of all is trust. This was especially apparent with the three owners who, after sporting such a long tenure at the business, have taken a back seat role to let department supervisors and managers run it as they see fit. This serves as a tangible example of how the company’s managers trust its employees, a refreshing change from Hayden’s own corporate experiences in which companies routinely demonstrated a lack of trust in the efforts of their workers.

He calls the Air Logic team a tight-knit group, and the company is quick to celebrate their victories, especially with lavish parties. This camaraderie was especially necessary during 2020, as the company saw high demand in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic for ventilator parts. The ventilator demand was unprecedented but Air Logic managed to hit all its targets and instituted a bonus and a party for its employees who persevered during tough times. The pandemic “brought everyone closer together because we all had a singular focus and agreed-upon goals.”

Outside of fraught global instances, many of Air Logic’s employees are long-tenured, with some boasting thirty-five to fifty years of experience in the company thanks to a generally high rate of employee satisfaction. The business also likes to build its employees up for the future, hiring local apprenticeship toolmakers and helping its people along their educational paths into apprenticeship to eventually become full-fledged toolmakers.

Only a few decades ago, Air Logic existed solely in the industrial automation space. Throughout the 2000s, it moved more into manufacturing components for medical and life science devices, such as analytical and bio-fabrication devices. In industrial sectors, as Hayden sees it, a lot of businesses still use pneumatics but, as things become more electrified, it is not a big growth sector. “That side of the industry is flat,” he explains.

In device-driven industries, however, growth is a constant, which is why the company is so interested in fields like bio-fabrication. Companies in that field are focusing on projects like fabricating human veins via machines, for example, for use in medical and surgical procedures, looking to eliminate the need to re-use human veins across the body and limit bodily rejection in such procedures. The company has even joined with Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI), which features people across academia, industry, and research working on solving problems in fields like bio-fabrication.

“It seems like the birth of an industry,” Hayden says, reflecting on the many business and humanitarian opportunities lying within and confident that Air Logic can be part of the solution. As organs need to be grown in very particular environments, companies like this can help with the flow rate and process issues.

Hayden also sees product compliance as another trend as, annually, every industry has more compliance requirements. With the United States starting its own compliance requirements to disclose certain chemicals in products, these regulations can be something of a burden on smaller companies like Air Logic as a company or supplier may not have a compliance expert. Hayden views this as an adapt-or-die moment as, if one wants to sell into certain industries, compliance is the only way to go.

Based on this new call for compliance, the company will be undergoing a complete overhaul of its processes through a third party. That party will also look to speed up compliance processes between Air Logic’s suppliers and make statistics more available and accessible online.

Hayden had two goals for the company upon entering marketing: overhaul the website and produce original video content. Now that the former has been accomplished, work will be put into making videos of the company’s products, which he considers an important step. This will enable customers to better understand usage and installation and will enable better education on the company’s offerings.

Air Logic sells all its products through distributors, some of whom have had twenty-to forty-year relationships with the company. The company is looking at its distributors individually, citing Industrial Specialties out of Colorado as an example of a perfect match that it has brought into the fold. It is also looking to expand on the product line with new inserts to allow for greater flow control, preferable for a manifold or housing.

The company has big goals moving forward and is keen to rely on the skills and values of its employees to see that these goals are not only met, but exceeded, on the way to making Air Logic one of the country’s go-to manufacturers in its field.

The post Leveraging Decades of Manufacturing Expertise into an Exceptional Client Experience<p class="company">Air Logic</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Happy accidents happen, even in laboratories. Or, should I say, especially in laboratories? From Vaseline to Viagra – with matches, microwaves, the color mauve, and many other discoveries in-between – science is no stranger to the indomitable spirit of serendipity. A notion that once again proved itself when researchers at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, recently made an entirely novel discovery known as monoclinic gamma-phase sulphur. And that’s not all. Various new battery technologies are about to set the world of energy storage – and technology – on a new trajectory.

As recently as a year ago, there remained but one caveat between the best intentions and most green energy storage technologies being entirely earth-safe. Enter lithium-ion batteries. Powering everything from mobile phones to electric vehicles (EVs), these light-weight, versatile batteries come with a hefty price tag – both environmentally and, in some cases, in human rights violations with poor working conditions and child labour being huge concerns. But not for much longer.

Suddenly, Drexel’s lithium-sulphur discovery is here to take the world to the next frontier in its search for ethical and environmentally safe power storage units. What is more, as the race to run electric vehicles (EVs) across increasingly longer distances continues, lithium-sulphur could perhaps become a placeholder for the dawn of even better, commercially available sodium-sulphur batteries. Because, according to Drexel University’s research, sodium-sulphur currently appears to be the next step toward global energy freedom as it would contain even fewer contaminants and more readily available compounds that are easier to extract. That will, eventually, not only mean simplifying but also securing supply chains and significantly reducing the cost of battery manufacturing.

But here, too, exists a caveat. Currently, safety concerns around the combustion properties of sodium-sulphur are slowing down commercial prospects. While Ford, the global automotive leader, is reported to have experimented with sodium-sulphur battery technology in the 1960s already, it is on record to have caused a fire in Japan in 2012. That brings us back to the exciting set of benefits that lithium-sulphur proponents are currently marvelling over – and that includes safety.

As the pressure increases to get truly green energy storage units into products like EVs to wean homo sapiens of its fossil fuel addiction, monoclinic gamma-phase sulphur appears to be as good as a miracle. One that entirely changed how we will do batteries in the future. As the compound only comes into existence in this form at temperatures over 95 degrees Celsius, or 203 degrees Fahrenheit, researchers were surprised to find it fully developed at room temperature. Suffice it to say scientists are working around the clock to explain the new phenomenon. Proving to be the final hurdle in creating a lithium-sulphur battery of this quality, Drexel’s team consequently developed a “carbon nanofiber cathode substrate” meant to keep the compound stable in battery form. Which now appears to be a catalyst for the chemical process that led to the discovery.

Readers may wonder what the fuss is about if these batteries would still contain lithium – and rightly so. While the hard science is freely available for anyone to study in-depth, the everyday implications of monoclinic gamma-phase sulphur-boosted lithium batteries are revolutionary in their brilliance. The winning factor is that sulphur, in this form, is more stable when combined with lithium, stopping what scientists call a poly-sulphide reaction typical to sulphur in its simplest form. It significantly improves the performance, weight profile, and lifespan of the new wave of lithium-sulphur batteries. And it is more readily available. That means we do not have to go very far at all to source it or do as much damage to the planet to remove it.

In February this year, a statement by research leader, Vibha Kalra, Ph.D., George B. Francis Chair professor in Drexel’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, shed some light on the matter. “Sulphur has been highly desirable for use in batteries for [some] years. [Because] it is earth-abundant and can be collected in a way that is safe and environmentally friendly. [And] as we have now demonstrated, it also has the potential to improve the performance of batteries in electric vehicles and mobile devices in a commercially viable way,” he said.

Doubled longevity to that of lithium-ion batteries at one-third of the weight is set to now drive electric vehicle sales as prohibitive replacement costs can, at last, become a thing of the past. They are cheaper to manufacture and charge up just as quickly – if not quicker – than their existing cobalt-boosted forerunners. The lower weight of lithium combined with monoclinic gamma-phase sulphur also means that such batteries should, in theory, make it possible for light aircraft and even certain types of water-faring vessels to run on electricity. In addition, a reduced fire risk exists with this compound in contrast to the hazards posed by lithium-ion in our existing rechargeable batteries. The product should become available for purchase as soon as research satisfies mass producers’ standard stability and safety concerns around monoclinic gamma-phase sulphur in lithium-based batteries.

But even with these advances, there remain big questions. How do we store power generated by wind turbines, solar panels, and the like? Recent reports tell us that one day last year, for a very brief moment, California’s alternative energy sources generated just shy of 100% of the state’s total grid load. Short of gargantuan efforts like hooking the world up to “intercontinental distributed smart grids” that are currently being developed, even on that scale, batteries remain the best storage option of electricity at present.

To this end, Somerville, Massachusetts-based firm, Form Energy, released a fine solution to the lithium-ion issue focused on long-term large-scale energy storage. Rechargeable iron-air battery technology. Even though the concept has been around for some time there have – up until now – not been sufficient economic drivers to spur its development. “The electric grid now faces a challenge: how to manage the multi-day variability of renewable energy without sacrificing reliability or cost. We are developing a multi-day energy storage technology that will enable the grid to run on low-cost renewables year-round. Our pioneering battery technology will reshape the global electric system and give it new form,” the company states on its website.

In a wider sense, one could describe the Iron-air batteries as based on bio-mimetic innovation for mirroring the respiratory action of living things while relying on a reversible rust cycle to be effective. While energy is drawn from the unit, it transforms iron into rust through oxidation – during which it pulls air from outside into the cell. Then, as it charges, electricity reverts rust into iron as the cell releases air.

This new iron-based product claims 100 hours of reliable energy storage during grid failures or drops in supply due to natural changes in weather patterns or technical issues. It also mentions “deep decarbonization” as one of the benefits of its product, listing multiple motivations such as zero need for thermal power generation or new wires – alongside an overall earth-friendlier battery.

Ultimately, lithium remains the current go-to metal for batteries in the foreseeable future. As a result, it continues to power the world, with market projections foreseeing a rise to around $99 billion – and more – over the next three years. Yet, the price future generations will pay for our use of this material is not worth it. And so, we continue to follow the development of more sustainable, ethical batteries with bated breath.

The post Better Battery Manufacturing<p class="company">From Mobile Tech, To Vehicles, To Grid Surplus Storage</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.