This one is for you Mr. Plant Manager or CEO.  Especially if your company is publicly traded company you are very familiar with how tight money appears to be when it comes to funding projects that involve machinery and condition monitoring, which do not have a ½ to a 1 year ROI – it is virtually impossible to bring them alive.  I have seen projects not make it even though they would have saved the company tenths of thousands of Dollars in power savings, cooling water elimination, repair reduction etc.  You also know that little expense is spared when production is down because a machine broke that sometimes does not even need to have been a critical piece of equipment.  Bunches of money are then spent trying to expedite the repair or replacement.  Ironic, is it not? 

Planning and Doing (Implementation) come natural to us. However, setting time aside and reviewing what has been done or implemented is not common practice. Always stick with the process step that you are at the time. When you are planning stage, do not do any of the other two things. The same goes for the Doing and Reviewing part. You will save on nerves, effort and money if you do the well.

The most vital component to a successful team task is the review process. It is the most frequent overlooked task in any project you need to undertake. Some projects may make great progress at first and then later fail because along the course of anything you do in business there will always be some tweaking along the way and no one ever took the time to include this in a review phase. The “tweaking” changes the dynamics of a project and if no one takes time to record what, why and how it happened you will not be able to capture why the results were different than expected. This is extremely frustrating for everyone and wastes resources with a direct impact on the net bottom line because you will never know why you failed, or worse why you had success.

Not our world famous DSI Snake Sandwich High Angle Conveyor, but an overland conveyor this time.  I’ll just go ahead and cut to the chase.  Diamonds got me last time.  So what goes best with diamonds?  Well of course the precious metals that holds those gorgeous stones.  The stuff that’s going to diversify your portfolio because it’s worth so much now.  That’s right…GOLD!

So here’s what’s been going on.  Dos Santos International is currently finishing up the Los Filos Project that was awarded in cooperation with M3 Engineering of Tuscon, AZ.  Goldcorp’s Los Filos Project is in the Nukay mining district of central Guerrero State in southern Mexico.  It promises to be one of the largest open-pit mines in the country.  It reminds me of our diamond mine project in Canada.  Those systems are contributing to projects that are projected to overtake South Africa as the new primary source of diamonds for the world.  See, we like to do things bigger and better around here!

Yes, you are reading this correctly.  There is no doubt that 2009 will go down in history as a year full of challenges and will always be thought of as the year of recession.  Personally, I could have lived without having to think about furloughs and workforce reductions.  But this year has also been fascinating to me because of the many businesses that I have come across, which managed to not only survival, but even thrived under the most difficult conditions.  They have figured out that superior core ethics and flexible strategic risk taking can bring you back into the middle of the business opportunities.

Do you have just about three minutes worth of time? Then please read my essay on the topic of leadership. Today more than any time in history are we in need of ethical leaders: At work, on the Internet, in our social networks, at school and of course at home. And each and every one of us can make a start. Like my granddad always told me: “You have got to start with yourself and do not expect others to go first” Enjoy. Ralf

This blog is for all of us who at one point or another faced an issue that needed to be resolved quickly and must not happen again. Are you the subject expert in the area of the majority of issues? Chances are that you are not and even the people that are called experts, technicians, engineers, etc. may not be quite up to it either, but you find out about this way too late. This is a very frustrating, time consuming and of course costly event. There are countless examples of such cases that are all about frustrated customers that continue facing a problem that sub vendors and other third parties could not resolve for them either. For instance the Bulk-Online.com/Forum Forum is such an area where people turn for last resort help. Although, you can do a lot if not all on your own. All it takes is a blank piece of paper, ask five “W” questions and possess the diligence to look at all the details of the issue and the experts will like you for doing a lot of the leg-work research upfront.

By Jon A. Barrett – Business Development Specialist, Interior Maintenance Company, Inc

Combustible Dust, (or Explosive Dust), cleaning, is a required preventative maintenance program, in manufacturing and production facilities, to prevent safety hazards, possible fires and explosions, and for proper Indoor Air Quality.  Combustible dust is fine particulate dust, which is generated from products such as wood, metals, grains, agricultural, chemicals, plastics, paper, and carbonaceous products.

The manufacturing and production facilities equipment and machinery, pulverize, mill, grind, crush, macerate, and cut the bulk product.  In return, dust is generated, and accumulates on all equipment and facility structure surfaces.  The fine powder dust, which is suspended on the higher, inaccessible and unnoticeable surfaces, is the most problematic, for combustible dust.

Health Effects of Dust
Combustible Dust, can impact and affect, the facility workers health, leading to illnesses, and injuries.  “The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 6.1 percent of private-sector employees suffered 5.7 million workplace injuries and illnesses in 2000. Forty-six percent of those injury cases required days away from work for recuperation or restricted work activity.

Ancient people used to believe that the Earth was flat and it was not until roughly 500 years ago that we acknowledged the concept of our Mother-ship being a sphere. The technological tsunami that has been well on its way since the World Wide Web kicked into high gear in the mid Nineties managed to flatten the world again. As we keep surfing the top of the wave – and the Internet – we finally have a tool that has great potential for countries and people of any ethnical and religious background to participate in business globally without having to ever leave their houses.
There is not a week that goes by where businesses call or e-mail me offering their products and engineering services – from more than 8000 Kilometers away. Not only does our technology finally offer opportunities to those of us who used to suffer from centuries of colonialism and its ugly repercussions, it also has proven itself by making business more transparent and thus fairer in general. The times are gone by when manufacturers tried to manipulate the quotation and buying process by controlling if not limiting information. Now we just need a browser and a good search engine and wealth of information opens itself up to us. The Bulk Blog and the Bulk Online Forum are just the case in point for this phenomenon.
This type of trading makes the whole quotation and buying experience much fairer and provides unique business opportunities for producers that are sincere and genuine in what they offer to the market. The emergence of social marketing that at its root is basing a company’s success to think about inviting customers to buy instead of pushing themselves onto the customer and actively having to sell products or services. What that means is that now a consumer has so many choices that what a seller offers had better be providing value to them. It should (I feel it is a must) be offered for customers to take at their free will without manipulation. The Web lowers the smoke screen that conventional sales and distribution outlets used to benefit from and raises the bar for us all to be honest. Consultants are probably the only ones who could argue that there income are threatened by the free information made available on the Net. On the other hand, they also have a great chance to use the technology to their benefit. Even the Web cannot exist without relationships that are based on trust and commitment management. There still need to be people who need to work on answering Web based requests.
Of course then there is the rate of speed at which one can acquire knowledge and do business. It is fascinating to me that nowadays I have the opportunity to not travel to a job site any more because you I log on to the machinery controllers and “be there” without being there. Machinery troubleshooting is possible from wherever we have access to the Net. Even better, you are even alerted by the machine with an SMS or e-mail that it is on trouble. Can you imagine how much time, money and natural resources you – and therefore your customer – do not need to spend anymore? Plant managers have an opportunity assessing life cycle costs for product ranging from a small blower to high value assets such as kilns – phenomenal.
I have trouble nowadays thinking back to a time when we did not have technological marvels such as E-Mail, Skype, Twitter, customer relationship databases, Intranets, Microsoft Roundtable and so many more. It still comes with disadvantages such as leaving poor folks out who do not have the money to participate. The Internet has changed our lives forever and it has brought us humans closer together than ever before in history. It also will provide well for entities that use the technology in a way that is beneficial for all the stake and share holders – including the customer as well as our environment. How flat can the Earth get?

When I browse through this and other forums I am often fascinated at how much free advice is made available by the many experts.  At first one might think that this unpaid consulting at its best.  I am a firm believer in helping people out with as much information as you can provide.  Why?  It reminds me of my own sour grape experience as an adolescent trying to install a new cylinder and piston on my moped.  I had bought the – I might add expensive – parts at my up to then favorite motor cycle dealer.  Since I had been a gearhead all my live the mechanical part of the job was no problem with the exception to the ignition timing.  The store owner would not provide me with that value insisting that I let him do that at his shop, which was 10 miles away from home.  The experience turn me off so bad that I took my chances, figured it out myself and never went back to the guy again.  How many people do you think I told about the bad experience? 

The cause is bigger than the individual and the product is more than the sum of the parts

I have had the privilege to be part of a crack engineering team that gelled and matured over a several year period and then continued to get better and better with time and with each challenge. As is natural, each team member revealed particular strengths. The individual strengths tended to be diverse and cumulatively greatly broadened the capability. When inspired by leadership, towards a common cause that is deemed bigger than the individual, the individual strengths dovetail, not only filling the gaps but with strengthened bonds produce a powerful force. This is not a case for promoting specialization, quite the contrary. Individual strengths and leanings happen naturally. Indeed, individuals that are trained and inspired to be well rounded and complete don’t lose their strengths and leanings but achieve greater versatility and productivity and through a broader understanding of all functions are able to enhance the performance of others by their support.