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To address ergonomic issues, using a vacuum cleaner instead of manual removal of steel shot can reduce unscheduled downtime by 80%, reduce labor by more than 50%, and more effectively maintain a clean environment.

Almost every manager or executive in heavy industry has heard that safety is good for business. According to OSHA’s “Added Value of Occupational Safety and Health,” an effective safety program can mean the difference between “profit and loss” for an organization.

Eliminating manual material handling has the greatest potential to improve a company’s productivity, product quality, and overall business competitiveness.

Just as occupational health and safety programs vary for each operation, the return on investment for effective ergonomics measures will vary for each organization. However, there are several key areas where cost savings can often be realized when using a power vacuum cleaner. In addition to eliminating ergonomic hazards and injury costs, savings can include increased uptime, reduced labor, increased productivity, improved product quality, and a healthier, cleaner environment.

When Cianbro wanted to eliminate an ergonomic hazard associated with workers manually removing steel shot from an auger system connected to a blast machine at the company’s 40,000-square-foot manufacturing and painting facility in Georgetown, Massachusetts, Chris Chipman, director of health, safety and environment, researched ways to eliminate manual handling of heavy materials.

Cianbro operates in a variety of markets in over 40 states across the United States, performing proprietary civil and structural projects ranging from bridge construction to manufacturing and paint operations, as well as power plant and paper mill work. Cianbro is a 100% employee-owned company with a strong commitment to safety and has received numerous safety awards, including national recognition as America’s Healthiest and Safest Company by the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

The Georgetown plant produces steel beams for bridges and construction projects. Many of these projects begin with the beam moving along a conveyor system into a blast machine, where steel balls (called shot) are fired at the beam to remove rust and scale in preparation for welding or painting. Once the shot hits the beam, it enters a system of augers that extracts the material and returns it to the blasting machine for reuse.

The sandblasting process is extremely taxing on machines: when a machine breaks down, workers have to remove all the abrasives from the system to perform maintenance. In this case, two workers spent eight hours sweeping and collecting the steel shot, placing it in buckets, and then manually hauling it out of the production area with a bucket truck.

The project was designed with safety in mind and was designed to solve the ergonomic problems associated with moving heavy materials in tight spaces and manually handling heavy drums. While researching solutions, Chipman saw several large industrial vacuums and thought something similar might work.

According to Chipman, after speaking with a Vac-U-Max representative who had worked on another Cianbro project removing slurry on a bridge, it quickly became clear that a commercial shop vacuum was not suitable for handling large volumes of heavy abrasives. “He really fully understood our needs, and upon further discussion, we realized that this could really save money on equipment, downtime, production, etc.”

A pioneer in industrial vacuum cleaning and pneumatic conveying for more than 60 years, Vac-U-Max of Belleville, NJ has experience handling more than 10,000 bulk solids, including cast iron, steel, aluminum chips, powdered slurries, flakes, granules, pellets and many other materials. The company manufactures industrial vacuums for manufacturing, municipal, government and environmental facilities to improve cleanliness, working conditions and safety.

To handle heavy abrasives, a vacuum needed to be capable of picking up large volumes of waste in an industrial environment, and the 1020MFS 15hp continuous duty vacuum was the perfect solution, eliminating the need for workers to dig three foot deep trenches and use awkward footrests in tight spaces to scoop and lift heavy abrasives.

Although the unit can collect up to five tons of material per hour and is designed to collect heavy materials including steel grit, foundry sand, metal powders, sludge and other similar materials, Chipman still wanted complete assurance that the vacuum would collect the exact abrasive he needed.

“It’s heavy stuff,” Chipman said. “Each 55-gallon drum weighs about 2,000 pounds, and we weren’t sure at the beginning that what we wanted to do was possible. So we sent a sample of the abrasive to Vac-U-Max, they did some testing, and they assured us that it would be feasible for us.”

While the 1020 is portable, with large 14-inch rubber tires and dual swivel wheels that make it easy for a single operator to maneuver, Cianbro mounted its equipment on skids. “In our eyes, jolts and jerks are a hazard, and we do everything we can to avoid that,” Chipman said. “So we mount it on skids and use equipment to move it. For us, it’s very portable because we have equipment on site — forklifts and lift trucks — and we can move it anywhere in our facility.” Based on customer feedback, Vac-U-Max now offers the 1020 with an optional forklift mount.

“The beauty of this vacuum system is that the hose is long enough that we can place the collection bucket where it can be moved mechanically rather than having to manually move a cart with a bucket,” Chipman said.

Since purchasing the vacuum cleaners, the plant has reduced the labor costs of cleaning the machines by more than 50 percent. Previously, it took two workers eight hours to empty a pit, but now it takes only three hours per worker.

“We can now turn it off in the morning, vacuum it and fix it the same day with just one person,” Chipman said. “The reduced maintenance costs that were previously unbilled are now being redistributed into work time on billable projects.”

Sean Ramsey, production manager at the Georgetown plant, said the vacuums have proven to be very useful for routine maintenance and cleaning around machines, and “reduce the risk of injury and allow us to quickly and safely remove steel shot from machine pits for maintenance.”

In an environment where abrasive blast machines by nature wear out over time, reducing wear can extend the life of the equipment and reduce breakdowns and unplanned downtime. Because vacuums can easily handle heavy abrasive cleaning, the shop now cleans blast chambers and auger systems several times a week to reduce wear on machine parts.

Before the vacuum cleaner, the machine would break down about once a month, and all the abrasive materials would have to be removed for unscheduled maintenance or repairs.

Since installing the vacuum system, Chipman says, “We’ve only had to clean out the entire pit twice in the last year for unscheduled maintenance, which has reduced unscheduled downtime by 80 percent and increased production time.” “Of course, as a safety guy, I think it’s much safer to have a guy holding a vacuum than to shovel heavy materials into a bucket.”

Ramsey said that in addition to using the vacuum for its original purpose — cleaning steel shot from sandblasters and augers — the shop has expanded its use to other areas, such as cleaning garnet off the floor of another sandblasting area and in the paint booth. “It allows us to clean those areas safer and faster,” he said.

The shop also uses vacuums to clean up excess paint during paint jobs and for general shop cleaning. “When we do a deep clean, we use a vacuum, which is much faster and more efficient than just sweeping. And it makes the shop a lot cleaner,” Chipman said.

“A product is an investment, but if you take into account the potential for injury and quantify it in hard numbers, knowing that it will reduce downtime (which costs money), reduce the need for replacement parts, reduce wear and tear, and extend the life of the equipment, then it’s an easy investment,” Chipman said.