Have you ever given thought to what goes on behind the scenes when you see a new product? The saw guide lubrication system we build is one of those products that’s almost an application or machine specific that people think is a “one size fits all” type of machine. They never are.
In the beginning, we were told by a customer that all we had to do was to mix water and oil together to cool and lubricate the saws.
“Great, but how much water and oil do you want?”
“Enough to do the job”
So we started down this road of quickly putting these systems together to simply mix water and oil, just enough to do the job. That was 6 years ago.
The old saying, “the devil is in the details” definitely holds true and we met a number of devils on the road. The first thing was to figure out volumes of both water and oil. We spoke to a number of filers, Engineers (big mistake) and saw manufacturers to get an idea as to where to start. After a large number of figures were given to us, we did what they do at the Olympics; threw away the bottom and top figures because they were comprised of very unique situations and skewed the average.
Once the volume required was figured out, we went about trying to control it.
What equipment is readily available, off the shelf that would provide us with a means of tightly controlled flow rates?
What are the costs?
If your equipment costs too much, then it becomes difficult to sell. The Internet is a very handy tool and can find you things you didn’t know existed, but you still have to find a local supplier that can get these to you in less than 12 weeks.
The next step was to put the system together to see if the theory worked which took the better part of several months. Putting it all together in our shop and running it worked great, but would our idea of water, oil and no air actually work in the guide that was running up against a saw? Since we don’t have these types of machines sitting around our shop, or backyards we have to work with someone that is willing to take a risk with us, and try it out.
One of the nice things in this business is that you not only develop business relationships but a level of mutual trust; friendships will often form around what you do. We were lucky enough to have several customers that all were dealing with the same issues and were more than willing to try this new idea with us. They offered their equipment and put their production on the line in order for us to have a prototype. In explaining how this system was supposed to work, many of these people had the exact same idea formed in their own minds, so it was not a matter of convincing them, it was a case of “when” can we do this.
Many of these trials showed immediate results and skeptics were converted on the spot. Others are still playing with the systems because in their minds you can’t run such low water volumes and have those kinds of results.
There are several paths that can be taken to develop a product. The path that we chose relied very heavily on working with our customers to make this work. There are always unforeseen differences in each machine, water conditions, environmental conditions, and reasons for results wanted; the list goes on.
The biggest part of this was the attitudes of the people working with the equipment. Doing something different from everyone else is always a risk because if someone thinks it will never work, guess what, it won’t ever work. Having an open mind and a willingness to try something new is 90% of the solution. The rest is just valves, pipes and a few other things that cool and lubricate the saws and guides…just enough to do the job.
Author: Dean Maier
Dean has been in the automated lubrication business for 25 years, with 85% of that time spent in forestry applications. We are delighted to have his insight with this latest blog.
Industrial Autolube International Inc.
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