Rising to meet the Needs of our Customers!

Recently a customer of PTI was faced with a change in the processing of a part we had been bonding for some time.  The change would dramatically affect the amount of residual adhesive clean-up required and in turn, increase the amount of cleaning solvent necessary for the clean-up process.  This situation created a solvent fume issue that brought processing to a stand still.  Unfortunately, a simple off the shelf fume hood was not an option because the parts required processing in a Controlled Contamination Area (CCA).  The CCA designation requires us to maintain positive pressure air flow from the room at all time.  The fume hood would negate the positive pressure and to fix the environmental controls to offset the fume hood would be very expensive with a long lead time.  Our customer needed to maintain production, so we had about a week to solve this problem.  We assembled a small group of individuals and tasked them with developing a feasible and economical remedy as soon as possible.  EHS, Maintenance, and the Bond Shop Foreman were assembled.  Information with regard to air flow, VOC’s, flash points, filtering devices, surface area, etc. were all laid out on the table.  The group quickly settled on a simple, self contained, down draft table utilizing an Activated Charcoal Filter that would re-circulate room air.  Recirculation of room air would address the issue of positive pressure air flow in our CCA.  The table solution would allow us to maintain a large work area as well as have access to all four sides of the work surface. The down draft design would also allow the technicians to work in very close proximity to the parts with out any fume issues.  In a very short time, filters and blower motors were selected and a simple CAD design was created, built around “off the shelf” hardware.  That same day, the drawing was sent to a local fabricator and a week later our new down draft table hit the shop floor.  The same day the table arrived at PTI, we were back in production, suffering only a minor interruption in shipments.

 

Here at PTI, our production goal has and will always be, to process our customers parts in the fastest, most efficient and economical manner possible.  Going the “extra mile” for our customers is part of our culture!

 

Greg Wallis

Bond Division Manager

PTI Industries, Inc.