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How Your Plant's Expansion Joints Give You Predictable Leverage With Vendors
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Predictability - the ability to clearly determine future operations, including upcoming
maintenance needs and ongoing efficiency concerns - is the vital heart of the industrial
plant manager's job. Every aspect of an effective plant operation, from fuel intake to
productive output to the pollution control and exhaust subsystems, orbits the crucial goal
of making the plant's management an orderly and predictable affair.
There are few more cost effective ways to boost the predictability of your plant than to
ensure that its ductwork relies upon high quality, well serviced expansion joints.
When designed properly, a quality expansion joint will compensate for ductwork movement
under thermal stresses; it will isolate vibrations and stress load transfers from equipment
(such as fans and pumps) to your ducts and other connected equipment. Properly installed and
maintained in your industrial application, expertly designed expansion joints serve as invaluable instruments for mitigating risks and reducing the general operating complexity of an already complicated set of mechanical processes. In short, they make your plant easier to run - and less costly to maintain.
In addition to mechanical efficiency, however, making your plant more predictable offers another
important benefit: a heightened ability to better manage your service and equipment vendors.
By isolating vibrations and greatly reducing load transmissions between duct and equipment, a
properly designed FlexCom expansion joint makes it much easier to clearly define vendor
responsibilities for each. This in turn:
- Makes it much easier to determine past performance when reviewing vendor contract bids. Is
your current ductwork, fan or pump supplier truly worth their cost? Is your company enjoying
the full value you're owed under your current contracts? By eliminating much of the mechanical
operational overlap between them, your expansion joints offer you finer granularity in accurately
determining how your ductwork and equipment suppliers are truly performing.
- Enables you to better manage equipment warranty performance. If a problem arises, can you
easily determine - and prove - which of your service or equipment vendors is responsible for
fixing it? High quality expansion joints, by preventing the transmissions of vibration and
ductwork stresses, also help cut the risk of paying repair costs that should in fact be covered
under a current contract warranty. They also help take the guesswork from the fault identification
process, helping you clearly establish vendor responsibility when an apparent warranty redemption
is appropriate.
- Cuts time, cost and risk from ongoing maintenance operations. When your equipment needs
service, you want the right people to do the right job in the least time possible. Isolating
stress transmissions with well placed expansion joints helps cut diagnostic time on repair and
ensure that each ductwork component is receiving the timely maintenance that it requires.
- Places your procurement department at greater advantage when negotiating vendor terms. When
you are firmly in control of a highly predictable mechanical process, it becomes much easier to
accurately evaluate the claims, promises and performances of your current and prospective vendors.
This in turn offers your procurement department greater negotiation power - ultimately winning your
company better vendor contract terms and lower long term costs.
Expansion joints are a necessity in today's modern plant. They compensate for the thermal effects
that move your ducts out of alignment. They keep the gases flowing and your plant operating. Built
to reasonable standards, any appropriately selected expansion joint should handle these tasks.
At FlexCom, however, we believe that you should expect more. You should expect high quality design
and fabrication, highly reliable warranty service and cost effective maintenance. You should expect
a higher standard of craftsmanship, as well as a dedicated commitment to utilizing the most reliable,
effective expansion joint production techniques available today.
Most of all, you should expect your expansion joints to deliver the top performance you need to
accomplish the greater task of creating a more predictable plant - joints designed to not merely
keep the flow going today, but to also faithfully serve your business needs tomorrow as well.
Would you like to know more about how FlexCom
expansion joints can make your industrial plant more
effective, efficient, predictable and ultimately more cost effective to manage? Visit us on the Web
at www.flexcomonline.com for more information.
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