Tuesday
Bill Earl
In many industrial processes, the value of the product produced can be measured in thousands of dollars per minute. Down-time of any kind is very expensive and every effort is made to minimize it.
One such process has a trimming step that involves a long continuous moving blade, much like a bandsaw. Replacing this blade takes approximately 20 minutes. Engineers at the plant tested many types of exotic, expensive blade materials and managed to achieve only incremental improvements in blade lifetime. One clever engineer came up with a simple, inexpensive solution that would double the life of any blade. What was it?