In this episode we go over some current events dealing with the Corona Virus. Our guest Matt Stearns, owner of Millennial Money Management, talks about the economy and what that means for the manufacturing sector. Donovan and Matt discuss what has happened to the market so far and speculate on what we can see for the future. Imperial Systems is still up and running.
NARRATOR: Welcome to the Dusty Jobs Podcast from Imperial Systems. Industry knowledge to make your job easier and safer.
DONOVAN: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Imperial Dusty Jobs podcast. As you know, today we are doing this from home. Due to the coronavirus, we are self-isolating. But we do have a guest today via internet. It’s Matt Stearns. Matt, tell us a little bit about what you do and why you’re on here?
MATT: Hi, Donovan. Good to be with you today, along with Imperial Systems. I am the owner/founder of Millennial Money Management in Meadville, Pennsylvania. We’re a full-service wealth firm. We do financial planning and also in-house wealth management. So I’m here to talk a little bit about the economy and the market, and whatever other questions you might have.
DONOVAN: Great, great. Well, thanks for coming on. We know your time is valuable and we appreciate your insight helping us unpack a little bit of what’s going on, you know… we’re both sitting at home right now because things are a little crazy, and trying to figure out maybe how we got here, where we were, and where things are going to go, and glad for your insight on that since you watch those things on a daily basis. Let’s… how about we start about a month back. Where were we about a month back as far as the economy, Matt?
MATT: From an economic standpoint, really before the fear came into the marketplace about the coronavirus, things were looking pretty strong. Unemployment was at an all-time low, stock market at am all-time high, labor participation rate was good, consumer spending was high, people were going on vacations, and everybody looked poised for more growth in 2020. We were kind of leading up to the election here, and there were some questions that needed to be answered in the future, but from an economic standpoint things looked quite strong. And as we know, they’ve turned on a dime here recently, so there’s a lot to unpack here in what’s just happened in the last four or five weeks.
DONOVAN: Right, right. But I mean, we started off this year strong. We started off good. I know in manufacturing for us in particular, we were having a really good year at Imperial Systems, and it just seemed like almost everything happened… slammed on the brakes, flipped off the lights; it was almost like a screeching halt. Is that what you were seeing too, or… kind of bring us up to date on where we’re at now.
MATT: Yeah, it really felt like a fast-moving wave traveling all across the globe. It started obviously in China, and then when we had an economic shutdown in China for a brief period, I think it disrupted some supply chains minimally, but then it grew to South Korea, and the rest of the world started to pay attention to it, Europe and the United States, until eventually we started having cases in Italy, and we started to see European countries shut down, and now it’s here and we’re shut down. It’s disrupted global supply chains, so it’s affected a lot of industries across the board, a lot of service industries, but also manufacturing, and that’s a big result of the way that goods move across the globe, and the way we were restricting them because of the potential virus threat.
DONOVAN: I hear what you’re saying, and you know, we’ve got the kids at home right now because we’re home-schooling since they shut the schools down. We decided we should try to get a trampoline and came to find out all the trampolines are made in China… you can’t even get a trampoline in the United States. So we’re starting to see the effects now, just in our personal lives in a little endeavor trying to do that, and I can imagine that we’re seeing that across… just manufacturing in general, and a little bit of our dependency on some products being brought in from other countries.
MATT: Yeah, I think that’s a perfect example. To really speak of the extent of how serious the situation is, if we can’t get simple products like trampoline springs or whatever it might be that’s holding them back, how’s that affecting industry, and it’s alarming to me; I’m seeing disruptions in the supply chain for our defense industry, for example, because China is holding up production for things that we need to… that are in the interest of the national security, so it’s definitely a very serious situation, and we’re starting to see real economic numbers now that are being reported, that kind of show us that this has been pretty impactful and obviously most of the country’s in shutdown right now. Lucky for you guys you’re able to keep working, because of your focus on airborne health and safety, but a lot of industries are being heavily impacted and it is a little bit eye-opening to see how fickle those global supply chains are and how dependent we are on them, and they can unravel very quickly.
DONOVAN: Right. And I know for us at Imperial, being made here in the United States and being made right here in western Pennsylvania, it’s nice to be able to keep our local economy going and keep the guys working here, and also being able to help with anything we need stateside during this crisis, wherever we might be able to help out, we’re trying to do that. But so when we see that, as you start to talk about how this is affecting global supply chains, how it’s affecting… how do you see it playing out in our manufacturing sector? Do you see… if we start to look down the line, down the future a little bit… how do you think things might go?
MATT: Sure. So first of all, for the past three or four years since the new administration has come in, I think we’d seen a little bit more attention being given to the domestic manufacturing economy and the companies here in the US, getting some steel mills back up and running and supporting US manufacturing, and so that was helping, so we were watching that help, but obviously there is still a large dependency on the global supply chain. On a macro scale, we’re seeing our GDP, it looks like it’s going to be close to zero, are the projections for 2020. Q2, or Q1, excuse me, OK, so the first quarter of the year, we’re expecting GDP to fall compared to last quarter ten percent, and then another twenty-five percent decline in the next three months, so April, May, June, Q2. So it looks like the economic impact in the near term is going to be pretty severe. Those are really, really large numbers in GDP terms, so to put that in perspective, the worst quarter in a financial crisis was Q4 of 2008, and our GDP decline was eight percent, negative eight percent, and I’m talking about numbers now, ten and twenty-five percent. So this is a huge impact, and we’ve really never seen something so sharp and so sudden happen. Obviously, it’s a circumstance like we’ve never seen before. But it is going to be dramatic.
DONOVAN: I know, and you and I were talking about this before we got recording, but I remember you saying that one of the things that might help is unemployment. If we can get people back to work, that could really be something that gives the economy a boost in the arm. You got anything else to say about that? I know we were talking about that before, but…
MATT: Yeah, so obviously we just came out with our first jobless claims, so that’s people who just filed for unemployment, that was in the last week time frame since we’re recording this video, 3.3 million new jobless claims. That’s just unprecedented, and for each week here… the week we’re in now is probably going to be higher than that, the following week might be higher. So you’re talking ten million people that are going to be filing for unemployment in less than a month’s time frame, probably, is where it’s going to pan out. That’s pretty severe, and the problem or the concerning part of that is that it takes a long time for reemployment to happen. The economy could come back, get back on its feet, profitability can get back on its feet from the standpoint of companies are able to start selling products again, but companies are slow to hire back on because right now they just burned maybe a month’s worth of cash or money that they had saved up or they’d taken out more loans. So they’re reluctant to hire people back on until they get their balance sheet straightened up. So reemployment is the problem, and it traditionally takes a very long time to happen, especially after a really large spike like this. So one of the ways we can pull out of this is to rally together and get all these people re-hired as quickly as possible.
DONOVAN: Getting Americans back to work.
MATT: That’s right, and it’s got to be driven from an employer standpoint that says hey, I know we’re not in the same financial position that we were, but if the whole country pulls together and gets these people rehired, it will lessen the pain dramatically and our economy will rebound much quicker.
DONOVAN: Right. Now, I know this is not your one hundred percent realm of expertise, but if you had to just speculate on this, we’ve seen a lot of like you said, global disruption in our supply chain. Do you think down the line there might be any more of a shift toward more American companies building more American products because of just, to add some stability to their own production lines?
MATT: Well, I think there, is, has been a push, like I said, and I think it does have to do with the new administration, and that’s an apolitical statement, OK? But the problem is, and we have to be realistic about it, is the cost of manufacturing here in the United States. And so I’m not sure what needs to happen to get that sort of push back on, but if it’s another sort of “Made in the USA” type of marketing campaign or whatever it might be, to get people on board with hey, let’s rally together as a country, open up these manufacturing sites, understand that it’s going to cost more, you know, to get our inputs and materials, understand from a consumer perspective that we’re going to have to pay more for that good, but we’re supporting American jobs, we’re keeping our supply chain here in the United States, and also from a defense standpoint, you know, whatever we need from a national security standpoint, we can produce all of that if need be as well. So I think it’s a mindset thing, because we’re not going to be able to compete on price, so we’re going to have to just pony up and be willing to do it, and it’s going to be a psychological thing.
DONOVAN: Right, right. So I think that’s what we need in these times is some hope and seeing where we can go, and a clear understanding of, if we get together as a community, as a nation, what we can do to help get through this, not just by washing our hands and trying to be as safe as we can, but thinking down the line to how we can help get our economy back on line and get everybody back to work, and do what we can. We were also talking about earlier, the number one thing is we just gotta do what we can as individuals to try to be healthy and safe, so that the sooner we get rid of this health issue, we can get back to working and get the economy going. Right? Isn’t that what you’d say, Matt?
MATT: I couldn’t agree more. I think it’s a rallying cry here that this virus is impacting every single American, and it’s time for America to come together, to put their differences aside, political or whatever they may be, take care of yourself first and your family, and look after your neighbors, and the quicker we do that, employers looking after their employees, the quicker we all can rebound, get back on our feet, and get back to the way that things were, you know, just a few months ago. So I think you’re right on point, Donovan.
DONOVAN: Well, you know, our mission statement here is try to provide a healthy, safe work environment for everybody, and we’re hoping we’re going to do that individually by doing everything we can, and health and safety is one of our number one concerns here at Imperial. So just want to thank you for coming on, I want to thank everyone for listening, giving us a minute to talk about how we’re still doing strong here at Imperial and working in manufacturing. Matt, thank you for giving us a little insight onto the economics of where things are and where they were, and just once again, thanks for coming on.
MATT: Thank you very much, Donovan. It was a pleasure being with you. Hopefully we get to do it again sometime.
NARRATOR: Thank you for listening to the Dusty Jobs podcast. Breathe better, work safer.
In this podcast, we welcome President and CEO of Imperial Systems Jeremiah Wann to talk about the past, present, and future of the dust and fume collection industry. With almost twenty years of experience, Jeremiah has valuable insights into how our industry got to where it is today, and where it might go from here.
MITCH: Welcome to the Dusty Jobs Podcast from Imperial Systems. Industry knowledge to make your job easier and safer.
DONOVAN: Thanks for joining us again for the Dusty Jobs Podcast. This is Donovan Karki, the host. Today joining me is Jeremiah Wann. Jeremiah, how are you doing today?
JEREMIAH: Hey, I’m doing great. How are you doing?
DONOVAN: Doing good! We’re here at Imperial headquarters in Mercer again today, and Jeremiah, tell us a little bit about yourself.
JEREMIAH: Well, I’m the owner and CEO of Imperial Systems, started the company about twenty years ago, and this is my first podcast with Imperial Systems. This is fun. Dusty Jobs.
DONOVAN: We’re glad to have you on, we’re glad to have you on. So today what we’re going to be talking about is a little bit of your history, a little bit of the industry history, and at the end we’re going to talk about where we think things are going.
JEREMIAH: Right.
DONOVAN: So tell us, Jeremiah, what makes you qualified to tell us anything about dust collector history. Other than that you’re the owner of the company. But what’s your history that kind of gives you…
JEREMIAH: Yeah, I never really thought about it as being qualified, but I guess my… a little bit about my background is that, you know, I kind of got into this a little bit different than most people, you know, so I grew up in this industry. I’m third generation dust collection guy, you know?
DONOVAN: Yeah.
JEREMIAH: Sheet metal guy is what we were originally, but… my grandfather started back in, I don’t know what year, but he started back right out of the army, out of World War II doing sheet metal work in serial mills, and about the time my dad and my uncle were probably seventeen years old, and they started getting involved with the sheet metal shop there in Lapel, Indiana. And so that’s kind of a little bit about the history to that point. You know, I guess shortly after that, right out of college, I contacted my dad and said, “Hey, I’d like to go to work for you.” And he was, at the time, a manufacturer’s rep. So like we have reps today here…
DONOVAN: Yeah.
JEREMIAH: He was representing another brand of dust collector, and at the time, you know, I wanted to work with him. So…
DONOVAN: So then you came on as a rep too.
JEREMIAH: Essentially, yeah. Right away.
DONOVAN: So when you’re a rep, what all does that entail? What did you have to do?
JEREMIAH: Well, I mean, so the first thing he wanted me to do with me was to teach me autoCAD and to teach me air systems and how to design them. So I learned air flow, static pressures, cam velocities, internal velocities, and all these things we talk about today.
DONOVAN: Yeah.
JEREMIAH: And you hear… all this boring stuff we talk about. But it’s been my life for twenty-plus years professionally, and like I said, before that, growing up in a sheet metal shop from the time I can remember. It’s just kind of ingrained in me.
DONOVAN: Man, that had to be some really valuable knowledge you gained growing up, just being able to be in there with your grandpa, with your dad, seeing how everything’s built, and then being able to go out… you probably have such a better understanding of how a system goes together when you’ve been the guy who’s helped build it.
JEREMIAH: I think so. I mean, I still have people come to me a lot, you know, ask me for advice on different things, on systems, on equipment design, and today I’m still very, very involved in R&D, coming up with new products. And you know, it’s not just the way I was brought up, but it’s also just our daily experience around here, so yeah, it all helps for sure.
DONOVAN: Man, I know you said you didn’t ever think of yourself as qualified, but I think you’re more than qualified to give us some information about this topic. So that’s about you… now, so you were a rep with your dad… so, how did you get into building your own collector and just starting this company? How did that even come about?
JEREMIAH: Sure, well, you know… again, my background before that was growing up in sheet metal, so I understood. You know, we built ductwork and cyclones and baghouses, that kind of stuff. But you know, we worked together for about three years, and I don’t know if you ever saw Orange County Choppers… I don’t think it’s on anymore… but when that show came out, I’m like “Wow, my dad and I could have done the same thing,” you know, so I love him to pieces and today Thanksgivings are a lot better than they used to be, I can say that. But it’s one of those things where, you know, I’m kind of a bull-headed person and I definitely like to do things my way a little bit…
DONOVAN: Yeah.
JEREMIAH: And I think he’s kind of the same way, so we didn’t work together too well when we were in business together, but certainly we do on a day to day basis now. But you know, that being said, a few years after I started working with him, I started my own company. At that point I went to rep another line of equipment, and at that time still representing a company called Crestwood Recycling who makes wood shredders. So that’s kind of an odd twist, but did a lot in the shredder industry, which helps today a lot, because we’re talking about conveying materials and stuff. And so I had that experience. But when I got out of it, a little bit of the history of that was, if you remember, that was in 2001, so I got married in August of 2001, so… times were different back then, right?
DONOVAN: Yeah.
JEREMIAH: We had the attacks in September, and had just started the business, and…
DONOVAN: So we had September 11th, you got married, and you said, “Why not just start a business too?”
JEREMIAH: Yeah, and bought a house in the mix, too, so…
DONOVAN: Oh, man! You went all in.
JEREMIAH: Yeah, man, I started with my back against the wall, that’s what I like to say. So, you know, being a fighter that worked out well for me. It kind of pushed me. But you know, getting into the business… during those days, you know, I kind of got out thinking I was going to be able to set the world on fire and start making all kinds of sales right away. And then of course with the attacks, you know, you couldn’t get somebody on the phone. Everybody was pretty tied up with everything else that was going on. So within a couple years, you know, basically I said to my new wife at the time, I said… you know, we’re newly married at the time, and I said “In order to survive, I feel like we’re really going to have to start making some stuff.”
DONOVAN: Okay…
JEREMIAH: I said why don’t we… I knew how to make ductwork and cyclones and I knew design, so I said why don’t we start, we’ll buy some machinery and start building some stuff. So kind of the way it started out is, you know, it was kind of funny because, you know, working from home for a while, I was always big when I worked from home I still got dressed up like I was going to work, you know?
DONOVAN: Yeah.
JEREMIAH: It’s just a mentality thing. And I would basically get dressed for office work during the day and work eight, ten hours, and then at night I’d go roll ductwork and weld ductwork all night. I literally did that for about a year, and I would do that till 2:00 in the morning, then get up and do it all over again.
DONOVAN: Wow!
JEREMIAH: And so she would bring me dinner and whatever, and we would do that. And finally after I was just about to collapse, I said, “I gotta hire somebody”, and I could only afford one person. And so it’s… you know, the great American story, right?
DONOVAN: Yeah. And your first employee is still with us today, right?
JEREMIAH: Yeah, pretty close to the first employee. I had a few in between there. But yeah, Russ, Russ Ryland, he’s our service manager, and yeah, you bet he’s still here. He’s been here since… I’d have to ask Russ how many years, but it’s seventeen years, probably.
DONOVAN: Yeah, he has quite a history and a wealth of knowledge in the industry too.
JEREMIAH: We could probably do a podcast on Russ.
DONOVAN: We’ll have Russ on, we will. He’ll be on at some point. So, in the industry… now we’ve got a little bit of history on how you started, so in the industry, how do you see things from where they were in, you know, 2000 to where they are today? What do you… what’s the big shift? I know for you some things have shifted. How did that all come around?
JEREMIAH: Well, when I first got into the business, I mean, I’ve done, even at the time, carbon black projects, did mining projects, did a lot of different industries, but to be honest with you our focus was really on the wood industry.
DONOVAN: OK.
JEREMIAH: I mean, we did a lot of the big furniture companies, the big ???? and particle board type furniture companies. And prior to 2008, that was a pretty big industry in our country.
DONOVAN: Yeah.
JEREMIAH: So there’s been a lot of change for me, as far as that goes. For us, in 2008 we decided we were going to run as far as we could from marketing to that industry. Now, we never left our customers and we never ran away from our base, but we certainly said, “You know what? All our marketing dollars going forward are going to be in manufacturing.” It was kind of the area we picked.
DONOVAN: Shift the focus.
JEREMIAH: Shift the focus. Even to this day, the majority of our focus is in manufacturing and metalworking.
DONOVAN: Right. So, and that shift of focus, that was a shift of product, too, here at Imperial. So that’s where you guys started building cartridge collectors, right?
JEREMIAH: Yeah, about that time, you know. Yeah, we did, and it was the best move we ever made, to be honest with you. I mean, at that time we built baghouses, we built cyclones, we built ductwork, we built rotary airlock valves, but in order to really… you know, everybody’s story is different, and I realize everybody’s business is unique to their own needs and their own… the way they’ve designed it, but the way we were headed, I mean, we were still representing another brand at the time cartridge collector line, and you know, for us, to do a global footprint that I had envisioned, that was the only way to go, to go forward and start building one ourselves.
DONOVAN: So when you go from building baghouses, wood dust industry, then you shifted into more of a manufacturing, welding… what do you see the big differences between what welding and shops were like then to what they’re like today. I mean, you’ve been watching the industry for twenty years now. In your history, what do you see?
JEREMIAH: Well, I mean, the big difference with the shops back in the day versus the shops today… I mean, we can go way back… I talked about my granddad earlier, and not to take anything from him at all, you know, this isn’t a knock, but I’ve heard the stories, back in the sixties and seventies, where they had, you know, twenty or thirty people piled up in a small shop and they were stepping on extension cords and leaders for welders and just never really cleaned up too much because, you know, the focus, kind of the old school focus, was “get the work out the door at all costs”.
DONOVAN: Yeah.
JEREMIAH: And you know, we know that even from labor today. The guys used to work sixteen hours all the time, you know, no big deal, but… so, fast forward a little bit, you know, and shops are just a lot cleaner, they’re safer, they’re more organized, and I want to say to clear the air on that, too, he runs a shop in Texas today, like I said, and it’s very clean and very orderly, so he’s doing good.
DONOVAN: So there you go, that’s a guy who’s been running a shop his whole life, and even within his own business, it’s shifted to becoming a more cleaner shop.
JEREMIAH: Well, everybody has.
DONOVAN: Everybody has.
JEREMIAH: Everybody has, and I think, you know, you and I were talking earlier, and I think that a lot of it is the focus has changed a lot to, I think, obviously the customer. When you invite the customer in, you want them to see you have a nice, orderly, clean environment. I think that’s important, but probably even more important than that is that when your employees come to work every day… and I tell our people all the time, you know, I say we spend more time with each other than we do with our own families. So essentially we’re family, and we need to act like it, so we need to clean up after each other, we need to have a nice, neat place to come to work every day. But on top of that, if you’re trying to hire new people, and today is… obviously the economy is booming today… and potential employees are interviewing you almost as much as you’re interviewing them, right? So they come in and they want to see, you know, where they’re going to be working, and so, you know, we’re very happy that we, and very proud of the fact that we run that kind of organization here. It’s very clean and very orderly.
DONOVAN: Yeah, I can imagine if you have an interview with two people and you walk through one shop and it’s clean and looks well, and then you walk through another one and it’s got a haze through the whole thing, it’d kind of be an easy pick to know which one you want to go work at.
JEREMIAH: Right, for sure.
DONOVAN: And that’s a lot of the industry, you know. Across the board, people are trying to find good people to work, and they want to keep their shop clean, and not only does that help keep the shop clean, reduce risk, reduce time on cleanup around the shop…
JEREMIAH: Right. I think that’s the point, is that you know, our air systems today, that’s one of the things they do. Not only does it make it safer from an NFPA and OSHA standpoint, but it also, you know, you have less cleanup time, right? So you have… you walk through a plant that has adequate dust collection or fume collection and it’s much cleaner, so you’re not spending all those hours sweeping up after yourselves and that kind of stuff.
DONOVAN: Right.
JEREMIAH: Funny story, you know… today I was walking up here to do this podcast and one of the guys came by and said, hey, can we program our… you know, I have an idea. And I said, what is it? So I said, what is it, because we love ideas here. What can we do to make our environment better? And so he said, well, can we set the dust collector to where… you know, this is an ambient-style system, so it’s basically just ductwork above weld cells. And so he said, can we just set it so when we hit stop, it has a thirty minute delay? And I said sure, why wouldn’t we do that, because in the back of my mind, dust collection guy, I’m thinking that’s like an offline cleaning thing or whatever that would help the filters. But no, his idea was that those thirty minutes after we leave, you know, it’s still kind of pulling that smoke out of the air, whatever’s left up there, which isn’t much, but that eventually settles down and lays on their table in the morning, because he said, when I come back in in the morning, that thing gets shut right off, and you know, there’s a little bit of dust back on my work table.
DONOVAN: Yeah.
JEREMIAH: So that was just a great idea.
DONOVAN: Yeah, well, you know, back in the day, they wouldn’t even have noticed that their desk was dirty because it was still dirty from the day before. I mean, that’s the big difference between shops now and then.
JEREMIAH: Yeah, we’re kind of picky around here.
DONOVAN: So that’s where we’re at. The industry’s kind of come a long ways from where it was to where it is now. Better standards, better… I can only imagine where the future’s going.
JEREMIAH: Right.
DONOVAN: I mean, we’re probably… I know government standards are coming up, there’s some things that are coming down that are gonna make for some people to have a cleaner environment, but in general I think people are interested in having a cleaner environment, not just in their shop but what they’re pumping outside. But what do you see the future of where the industry’s going and where dust collection’s going?
JEREMIAH: Well, you know, I think it’s getting better. You’re going to see it in more and more plants around the country. Obviously we have the government which, we have OSHA kind of dictating what we’re using this for and which… I think it’s all for the better. I mean, it helps, it saves lives, so I think that it’s good. I like all the standards that I’m hearing that are coming out. I think it’s good. You know, as far as the future goes, I mean, we… today we’re seeing, you know, obviously robotic weld cells are taking off, I mean, robotic for manufacturing in general is big, so we’re doing more and more with that type of stuff. You know, I think localized filtration is important too, so where before we used to just do big ambient systems for the whole plant, you know, I think that’s great and it has its place. But you know, I was actually just sending an email to a guy that has a manufacturing shop out west, and was taking about the pros and cons of different styles, and one of the things we really like, and we have in our plant, is, you know, smaller ambient systems that are more modular.
DONOVAN: Yeah, we were… I had the opportunity to walk through a facility the other day, and they were looking at that, and they were also looking at their robotic cells where, you know, when they get a new line in, or they get a new contract, sometimes they have to shift that whole facility.
JEREMIAH: Right.
DONOVAN: And I think that’s a little bit of what people are looking for, the flexibility within a system.
JEREMIAH: Oh, absolutely. If you have a piped in system to where it’s all close capture, everything’s hooded or flex arms or whatever, you know, we are constantly trying to do improvements around here to speed up production. But if the limiting factor was always, we don’t want to do that because we don’t want to spend money on the ductwork or redesigning the dust collection system, that’s very limiting and we don’t want to… we don’t do that here, so the ambient is much better for that.
DONOVAN: Yeah, and when you put in an ambient system, it gives you a little more flexibility of cranes and…
JEREMIAH: Oh, yeah. For sure.
DONOVAN: But I mean talking, going back to robots, going back to what’s going on, I think sometimes people think robots and they’re thinking man, well that’s gonna be… what do you have to worry about that for? Nobody’s even going to be around those robots. But you’ve been in facilities, I’ve been in facilities where there’s someone there, right there beside it, checking it out. And they’re also… that’s a big investment people are making, so…
JEREMIAH: Yeah, I get a kick out of that. I always hear people, you know, robots sound scary, like they’re going to take over and take our jobs. It’s funny, because I think sometimes it’s, you know, it’s two to one sometimes, you’ve got two guys operating the robot versus… but the idea is that it’s consistent, less chance of failure with welds, with fit parts, with precision, so I think it’s making things better overall.
DONOVAN: Yeah, and I mean, from what I’m reading, from what I’m seeing, it does seem like more automation is probably where the future is going in a lot of the industries.
JEREMIAH: Absolutely. We’re trying to do that here. We’re trying to do it with fixtures and really kind of honing in our process to make sure that we can repeat the same product over and over and over, and especially if one guy doesn’t show up one day, the next guy can come in and he has the procedures all written and he knows what to do, he has the fixtures are there, he can’t really mess it up.
DONOVAN: Right, yeah. So thanks for sharing with us about your history and where you’ve been and kind of getting a little bit of a thought where we’re going to go here, and you guys who are listening, just so you know, as these challenges come up, as things come up, we’ve been doing this for a long time. We’re going to keep doing it in the future, and so when you have questions, feel free to contact us, give us a call. We have a lot of products on our website, and I’ll do a little plug here for us about… we can help handle all these issues. And if you have more questions, feel free to email into the podcast. It’s dustyjobspodcast@isystemsweb.com. Look for us on Twitter, LinkedIn, see us on all the social media sites, and let us know what you guys would like to hear about. Jeremiah will be joining us more, he’s glad to answer any questions you might have. He’s got a wealth of knowledge, experience… so thanks for joining us. Jeremiah, you got anything, and closers here to say?
JEREMIAH: No. I’m excited about this. I’m happy to be on the second one, or third one, I’m not exactly sure how it’s going to roll out, but it’s exciting and, you know, looking forward to seeing what comes out of it.
DONOVAN: Yeah, thanks for listening, and we’ll hear you on the next one.
Keith handles the dust collection equipment for a company that manufactures protein powder. Their customers include major health and wellness companies like GNC. The company currently owns 3 Imperial Systems CMAXX collectors and one competitor system.
Protein powder applications can put any dust collection system to the test. Keith found that his filters weren’t holding up. “I was cleaning them three or four times just to get some use out of them,” he says. “The dust was getting through them and into the HEPAs. Replacing them so often was a major strain on our budget. I really needed filters that could do better.”
Solution:
Keith decided to try Imperial Systems’ DeltaMAXX filters to see if they would last longer. He reports that the DeltaMAXX filters are lasting about 4 to 6 months, longer than the others he had tried. He also found that with the DeltaMAXX filters, they were no longer seeing any dust blowback as before.
Although happy with the filter life improvement, Keith says that filter changeouts are still costing the company too much money. With some troubleshooting, Keith’s Imperial Systems aftermarket representative helped him nail down a potentially serious problem. Dust is backing up into the hoppers when the dust containers aren’t cleaned out. This common problem can drastically decrease filter life, so Keith is looking into the Dust Level Sensor to make sure containers aren’t neglected.
Feedback on Their Protein Powder Dust Collection
Keith reports that his experience with Imperial Systems is very good. He’s happy with the performance of the DeltaMAXX filters, although hopefully, it will get even better if the company uses Dust Level Sensors to control the hopper backup issues.
“I’ve gotten everything I asked for,” he says. “I plan to install these filters consistently in all our machines.”
The company plans to continue working with Imperial Systems in the future for any of their dust collection needs. While we can’t always get the filter prices quite as low as Keith would like them, we’re working with him to make sure he gets the longest filter life possible to save him money in the long run.
We’re providing this handy guide so that if you want to damage your dust collector filters, you’ll have lots of ways to do it. Assuming you want your filters to last as long as possible, you may want to avoid doing any of these things.
Cartridge dust collector filters are made of a cellulose and polyester blend. This means that underneath everything, all cartridge filters are mostly made of cardboard. If you want them to do their job, treat them with care and don’t do any of the following.
1. Clean Them
Having your dust collector filters cleaned is a great way to ruin them. Cleaning a cartridge filter usually involves blasting it with compressed air. The result: filters with holes in them. Even if you don’t see any holes, a fluorescent dye test will reveal leaks.
If your differential pressure goes down after having your cartridge filters cleaned, it’s probably not because they are cleaner. More likely, it’s because air can now go right through the holes in your filters, taking dust with it.
2. Replace Only Some of Them
You notice damage to one of your filters, but the others still seem fine. Why not just replace the damaged one? You can do this, but only if you want to find out how fast you can make a filter fail.
The new, clean filter offers much less resistance than the older ones. As a result, it’s easier for air to go through that new filter, covering it with dust. The new filter will fail very quickly. This can throw off the overall airflow and differential pressure readings.
3. Buy Extra-Cheap Bargain Filters
Because there are many kinds of dust, there are many kinds of cartridge filters. If someone tries to sell you filters that seem suspiciously cheap, you’re right to be wary. These bargain filters might be 80/20, a blend of 80% cellulose and 20% polyester.
What’s wrong with that? First, these cheap filters have low efficiency, and they will not capture small particles. Second, they have no coating to protect the mostly cardboard filters from damage, so they will not last as long. Instead of looking for the cheapest filter, make sure you’re getting a good filter.
4. Beat Them Up
Handle your cartridge dust collector filters with care. Always lift or move them by the metal support or pan, not by the filter pleats. It’s easy to tear or puncture the filter material. Use care when installing the filters to prevent damage.
Since the base material of cartridge filters is cellulose, these filters should not be exposed to damp conditions. Store filters in a dry, protected place. Your filters should arrive upright in boxes, and they should be stored that way. Storing a filter on its side can cause the material to sag or the metal supports to deform.
5. Set Them on Fire
This one sounds pretty obvious, but it happens more often than you might think. Many types of dust can ignite and burn. Air moving into the dust collector can carry a spark or flame. A fire inside the dust collector will wreck your filters (and possibly lots of other things).
A properly designed dust collection system uses safety devices to prevent this from happening. For example, a spark arrestor will stop most sparks. An abort gate, triggered by a sensor, can divert sparks or flame safely. If your dust is combustible, look for fire retardant filters that resist burning.
Don’t Damage Your Dust Collector Filters
Our Imperial Systems aftermarket team specializes in getting you the best filters for your application. No matter what brand of dust collector you have, we have replacement filters. To make sure your filters work as they should, avoid these common mistakes damage your dust collector filters.
For this podcast, expert consultant Bob Korn from DEKRA Process Safety joins us to talk about dust hazard analysis, compliance with NFPA 652, and dealing with combustible dust hazards. As a professional in Process Safety Management, Bob explains the process of conducting an analysis, what to look for, and how to fix gaps in your safety system.
TRANSCRIPT
(MUSIC)
MITCH: Welcome to the Dusty Jobs podcast from Imperial Systems. Industry knowledge to make your job easier and safer.
DONOVAN: Thanks for joining us again here on the Imperial podcast. We’re still at Imperial headquarters here in Mercer, PA. Joining us today is Bob, Bob with DEKRA. Bob, tell us a little bit about yourself and a little about DEKRA.
BOB: Well, thank you, thank you for having me today. My name’s Bob Korn and I’m the Business Development Director for DEKRA Process Safety. We are a process safety consultancy and we help our clients prevent accidents, whether they be with combustible dust, flammable liquids, and/or chemical reactions. We basically do that through providing consulting services, testing services, and training services.
DONOVAN: Yeah, how long have you been… you’ve been in the industry for what…
BOB: I’ve been in the industry a long time, about twenty years in industrial protection and in process safety for approximately the last four years. But industrial protection, over twenty years.
DONOVAN: Yeah, DEKRA’s been around for a while too, right?
BOB: DEKRA has. We were formerly known as Chilworth Technology; a lot of people in the US might recognize that name, but we became part of the DEKRA family about eight years ago, and we’ve been in business for over 30 years providing process safety support for our clients in the US and globally.
DONOVAN: There you go. So, the main reason we had you come in today was because there’s some new standards coming out around DHA.
BOB: There are.
DONOVAN: Yeah, and it’s mostly… what’s that new standard?
BOB: NFPA 652. Actually it’s not quite new, but it was first released in 2015, the first edition, and 652 is the Standard on the Fundamentals of Combustible Dust, and it is now the over-arching standard that NFPA has developed and put out there to really help people have more continuity in understanding the hazards of combustible dust.
DONOVAN: They wrote it in 2015, right, but now it’s actually being implemented in 2020, right?
BOB: Well, there’s a deadline… one of the elements, to be compliant with NFPA 652, you need to complete a dust hazard analysis. It’s really one of the three primary elements with regard to combustible dust, and there is a deadline now that had been established for September of 2020 to be compliant and complete your dust hazard analysis.
DONOVAN: Yeah, but they’re going to bump that back again, don’t you think? Do you think they’re going to bump it back again?
BOB: If they do… as you said, they bumped it once, and the initial due date was September of 2018, and they got some pushback from industry, so they pushed it put to 2020.
DONOVAN: Yeah.
BOB: I don’t know if they’ll push it again. They may or may not. The important thing is for people to know that the standard is out there and they need to complete a dust hazard analysis.
DONOVAN: From what we’re hearing it doesn’t really sound like… I was kind of saying that sarcastically. I don’t think it’s going to get pushed back, but if it does it’s important to get it done no matter what to know what your safety is like in your facility, and that’s what you guys do, right?
BOB: Absolutely. You know, it’s important to complete. Combustible dust hazards have been around for a long time. The first combustible dust accident was documented I believe in 1782 in a bakery in Italy. They had a flour dust explosion. A gentleman was in there with a candle-lit lamp and collecting flour. But dust explosions have been with us for a long time.
DONOVAN: Yeah.
BOB: NFPA has done a great job with releasing 652 and there’s several other standards I’ll point to that help identify specific industries with the hazards of combustible dust. But NFPA 652 is attempting to combine those into one… well, it’s not combining them now, but they have one overarching standard that basically helps focus people’s activity so they know what to do to be compliant and be safe when they have combustible dust.
DONOVAN: So the first step in figuring out what you need is a dust hazard analysis, right?
BOB: It’s one of the steps. There’s three components, as I mentioned, of being compliant with 652. The first step is really understanding: do you have a combustible dust? And there’s a couple of ways you can go about that. There’s industry data that’s out there if that’s appropriate and descriptive of your process that can be used…
DONOVAN: So there’s some notes out there already on some dust…
BOB: There is some industry, and it might be company literature that they already have, or some research or development or testing they did previously, so they might have some data. Otherwise, there’s many laboratories… DEKRA Process Safety has a certified or ISO-accredited laboratory that provides combustible dust testing, but having good data, solid data to do the assessment, is one of the key elements of…
DONOVAN: So getting your dust tested is…
BOB: Get your dust tested, find the appropriate material properties that fully characterize the hazards of that particular material, that’s the first step really in performing a dust hazard analysis. From there you perform the actual dust hazard analysis, which is similar to a process hazard analysis.
DONOVAN: OK…
BOB: Which some people may be familiar with, I believe it was developed by the Chemical Processing Industry many years ago, OSHA has a PSM standard which they’ve applied to many regulated industries, but the difference being with a dust hazard analysis is just a… it focuses on a single hazard, and that is simply combustible dust. And the dust hazard analysis basically is you understand the material properties, and then you walk through a facility looking at each of the unit operations where they either handle or create… they handle combustible powders or they create combustible dust through particle reduction or some other process.
DONOVAN: So by particle reduction you mean like grinding, anything like that. In a facility where they’re generating dust, you want to look at that. So step one is getting that dust tested, step two is actually walking through the facility and seeing where this dust is coming from and how it’s being produced. Am I getting this correct?
BOB: You are.
DONOVAN: All right. So now we’ve got step three, right?
BOB: Not only do we look at the processes when we’re going through the facility, but we’re also looking at the facility itself, because we want to understand what type of housekeeping they have in place, and we look for fugitive dust accumulations, and oftentimes you get dust layers or dust accumulating on horizontal surfaces whether it be at ground level or elevated surfaces. It’s very important to understand at what level or how much dust is accumulating within the facility, and those can present special, unique hazards and can also contribute to a secondary explosion if you have an initial event…
DONOVAN: Gotcha.
BOB: Yeah, those fugitive accumulations can cause serious consequences if they’re not dealt with and cleaned up.
DONOVAN: So as you’re walking through this facility, you’re looking… you’re not just looking at the process that’s creating the dust, the source of the dust, but you’re also looking at the area around the facility where this dust might be laying, on some ductwork or on a shelf, because heaven forbid that if something would happen, that dust is going to get airborne and create a secondary explosion.
BOB: Absolutely. That’s absolutely correct, and yeah, it’s not just the individual processes, although those are a primary, you know, focus of the dust hazard analysis is looking at the individual unit operations where they’re grinding, as you mentioned, grinding, mixing, milling, sanding, all of those, drying… but you also want to look at the environment in general and the housekeeping program in place, and any fugitive accumulations that could be… whether at a floor level or an elevated level.
DONOVAN: OK. Now, that’s the full walkthrough? Is there something else you do after that?
BOB: Basically… well, initially, you sit down with your client and you review the documents. You get a set of documents, basically a plant layout diagram, PNIDs(?) if that’s relevant to the process, if it’s actually connected, process flows, other flow diagrams, material property data. You review all the documentation ahead of time, maybe sit down with the client and review that when you get onsite, then you walk down the facility and review the operations, document your observations so you can, you know, clearly report those back in the report, do the analysis after you do the walkthrough of the facility and inspect and observe all the different operations and the housekeeping and the fugitive accumulations. And then you compile this into one report. The dust hazard analysis report includes of course your observations, a little bit of description of the process, but it also has the findings and recommendations. So based upon what we’ve seen, the consultant will make recommendations on what particular changes need to be made based upon… what they find or what they look for is gaps.
DONOVAN: Gotcha.
BOB: And gaps in… there’s certain protection measures that should be in place, and what we do is identify gaps in existing measures and make recommendations to close those gaps so the facility can be operated safely.
DONOVAN: So if I’m a… let’s say I’m a plant manager, I know this is coming up, what are some things I should be doing to prepare for myself, as a plant manager, getting a dust hazard analysis. What are the steps I need to take? Obviously we said to get your dust tested.
BOB: Getting the dust tested will… and we can help guide our client through that… in some cases they have a lot of different types of materials that may be used, and recipes, if you will, for different products, so maybe we’ll help them and advise them to look at, you know, you’ve got 40 ingredients but there’s seven product groups those ingredients go into, so let’s test each one of those seven product groups, the primary ingredients in those seven product groups, get the data we need to do the assessment or the analysis ahead of time, review the documentation from the site, so they’ll be required to pull some of that together. And then we’ll also want to have specific team members, you know, depending on the organization, how they’re structured, but you typically have an EHS person, one of their safety people. You want an operations person, someone that’s familiar with each of the unit operations that you’re going to be looking at. Maintenance people are very useful in the dust hazard analysis. They’re the people who really know the ins and outs of the facility.
DONOVAN: The guys who gotta vac it up, right? They know where it’s coming from.
BOB: The guys that have gotta fix the broken stuff, yeah. And when you’re looking at, say, a bucket elevator, we need to know… you know, they’ve got belt line gauges or sensors that tell them when that belt is out of alignment. You know, critical things that they need to keep on top of to ensure you don’t introduce mechanical friction and sparks or ignition sources.
DONOVAN: An ignition source.
BOB: One of the key elements when you’re talking about dust hazard analysis… and there’s four primary things that you’re looking at when you’re doing a dust hazard assessment, and that is can… is the dust combustible, is the dust small enough to be…
DONOVAN: Particle size?
BOB: Yeah. Is the particle size small enough to propagate or promote a deflagration event? Can the material be lofted in the air, is there some mechanism that it could be lofted into the air, dispersed in the air? Is it… can that dispersed cloud reach the minimum explosive concentration? Is there enough of it? And the final element, is there a credible ignition source? So that’s why we look at equipment, you know. Equipment can be one source, mechanical, friction or sparks, there’s also thermal conditions with hot bearings and so forth, electrostatic conditions, hot work… there’s a myriad of ignition sources out there, and as someone, I’m not sure who, said, ignition sources are free.
DONOVAN: They’re free….
BOB: No extra charge!
DONOVAN: Someone’s always looking to light this stuff on fire!
BOB: Well, that’s what you have to plan for, you know, is that it can potentially happen at any time. The upset conditions are a reality, and when we’re doing dust hazard analysis, not only do we look at the standard operating conditions, but we also consider what could happen in upset conditions. What happens if this belt comes off or this pulley gets stuck, or this sensor doesn’t work, and you know, what are the potential risks associated with that?
DONOVAN: So, trying to think of some other things that we could cover here… utilize most of your knowledge… so we got what’s involved, we have… kinda looking at our notes here… so once a customer comes to you, you do the walkthrough, you do all of your analysis.
BOB: Do the dust hazard analysis.
DONOVAN: So then the idea is to come back to them with the risk and solutions, correct? Is that what you do, or…
BOB: Well, after we perform the onsite survey, if you will, or the onsite portion of the analysis, they’ll… the consultant will take that information and do the assessment or the analysis of all the information collected while onsite. They’ll prepare a report that certainly documents their observations and their findings and identifies the gaps in the safety measures that are existing, or just missing completely. And then make recommendations to close those gaps. And those recommendations will be risk-ranked from high, medium, to low. In some cases we’ll see situations at a facility, it’s a very high-risk situation, and we’ll make that recommendation immediately while on site that you need to stop doing that. Unplug this…
DONOVAN: So you might be somewhere, you see something going on, you’re like “just turn it off right now”.
BOB: It’s very dangerous, deal with it right now. And then the other risk ranking is there for, as you return the report to the client and they’re reviewing what they need to do, obviously we all have a limited amount of resources and capital to do things, so the risk ranking helps them identify which ones are most important, ones they need to address in the short term and apply their funds and their resources to, to correct.
DONOVAN: Everybody’s got a budget these days.
BOB: Yes, they do.
DONOVAN: And then you’ve gotta figure out how much you can tackle at once.
BOB: Absolutely. It’s one bite at a time, as far as some of these projects can be very large and very extensive in some of these large facilities, and there’s a lot of findings, and they really need that risk rating to determine what do they attack first?
DONOVAN: Yeah, it kind of helps you as a… helps your customers get a strategy to move forward. Maybe it seems overwhelming at first, but you guys can help whittle it down to just what needs tackled, primary issues, and then secondary issues that are coming up down the line, they can budget for those as time comes on, and the money comes on, to be able to do that.
BOB: Correct. And that’s… the dust hazard analysis is the second portion of 652, the second element that you need to perform to be compliant. The third element is to ensure that after the dust hazard analysis, or as part of the dust hazard analysis, we’ll often look at their process safety management program while we’re onsite and ensure that they have the appropriate elements within their safety management program that address combustible dust issues. And the client needs to ensure that they have that in there, and sometimes we’ll provide a service where we’ll audit their program. In some cases they don’t have a program and we’ll develop a program for them. SO that’s basically the third component, and part of that, I think the important part of the safety management program, is another service we provide on a regular basis to ensure that the personnel within the facility that are in close proximity or work with combustible dust have some training and some knowledge, some basic knowledge of the hazards around dust, so training is very important.
DONOVAN: So do you guys offer that training too?
BOB: We do.
DONOVAN: So that would be something that… if there was classes or something that a customer was under-educated in a certain field, you could help bring them up to where they needed to be?
BOB: Depending upon the client need we offer either onsite training from simple one-hour overviews to webinar training. If they’ve got multiple sites in multiple time zones we can do webinar training, or we can do more intensive boot camp type training where we do one, two, or three day training onsite with ten, twenty individuals and we can do… we also include workshops in those trainings that we can tailor to similar operations that that client might have on their site.
DONOVAN: So once you complete all three of those steps, that would bring you into what is considered compliant, then.
BOB: With 652. And one element that I forgot to mention is 652 is kind of the overarching standard, but there are also commodity-specific standards for… there’s NFPA 61, which is the agricultural food standard. There’s 484, the metal standard, there’s 664, the wood standard, and so forth. Well, those are commodity-specific standards and they give guidance for these very specific industries, if you will, and if you don’t fall into those commodity-specific standards there’s a guideline in 654 which is kind of your standard guideline for protection and so forth.
DONOVAN: This is a lot of numbers and a lot of information, and I am glad there are people out there that are thinking about this full-time.
BOB: And there is, but the good news is these standards used to have significant inconsistencies from standard to standard. NFPA has done a good job recently of really pushing the committees to remove some of these inconsistencies, because at the end of the day the plant owner, it’s a little bit… it’s a large task to read these documents and understand them. That’s why there’s experts like us that can help and assist there, but it’s even easier for us as there’s less contradictions from standard to standard.
DONOVAN: Oh, yeah… I can imagine. And then it could get overwhelming.
BOB: It is. Very quickly.
DONOVAN: So… well, I think we covered a lot about what a DHA is and what you need for it. I’m trying to think if there’s any other common questions that people come to you with that we might be able to cover, help out… anything you guys get on a regular basis? Because with this coming up we want to be sure we’re able to help people get what they need.
BOB: Yeah, you know, one of the most common questions is “how long is this going to take?” and from… it really depends on the size of the facility and the number of operations that we have to look at, but for most facilities we can do the walkthrough of the site in one to three days. A three-day onsite visit is a pretty large facility, typically. And then the report is generated usually within 30 days after the onsite visit, and we issue a draft report to the client. The client can review that, and they may have questions or comments about the draft report, and then the draft report is then finalized. It’s just kind of how the process goes.
DONOVAN: So you’re looking at, for a standard-sized facility, about a month, month and a half process?
BOB: By the time you gather information and get onsite and do the assessment and do the analysis, and then get the report done, two months would be a pretty quick…
DONOVAN: It takes about two months and the deadline is in September. It’s going to be…
BOB: There’ll be a lot of people scrambling…
DONOVAN: There’ll be a lot of people scrambling.
BOB: … to get things done. But there’s no… you know, even though there’s a deadline, you know, there’s the authorities having jurisdiction will come in and say, “get this done”. There’s different ones out there, so there’s… the important thing is that you’ve got to… if you think you have a combustible dust hazard, be doing something about it now. If you don’t get it done, have a plan in place. Certainly, if an AHJ comes into your facility and asks the question and if you don’t have a plan, you’re going to be in a less favorable position than if you did have a plan.
DONOVAN: Well, thanks for taking some time to share with us. Thanks for giving us some knowledge, some information that’s going to hopefully help everybody out there who’s trying to figure out a little bit more of what they have to get done with this DHA and with the new standards that are going on, that they can find a little information in this. If they need more information they can look you guys up. What’s the best way to get a hold of you?
BOB: Just look at dekraprocesssafety.com and you’ll find us out there. If you Google us, Google combustible dust or process safety or DEKRA process safety you’ll find us and we’ll be glad to help.
DONOVAN: There you go. Once again, if you guys can’t find them, feel free to contact us, we’ll be glad to point you their way, and thanks for listening to the podcast!
BOB: Thanks for having me.
(MUSIC)
MITCH: Thanks for listening to the Dusty Jobs podcast. Breathe better, work safer.
. 
1. Clean Them