P.O. Box 1376 Monroe, GA 30656 (770) 267-3787 gpm@gpmhydraulic.com
|
April 2008
For an archive of past newsletters, please visit: |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
CLICK HERE to send this newsletter to a friend! |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Maintenance Hydraulic Troubleshooting on Interactive CD Our nationally acclaimed
Maintenance Hydraulic Troubleshooting workshop
on six fully interactive CD's. Includes our MHT workshop manual.
6-CD Set - $1200 Individual CD's - $250
+ Shipping and Handling.
Click on http://gpmhydraulic.com/mhtcds.htm
to find out more.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1. The Bottom Line | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Jack
Weeks - Consultant for GPM Hydraulic Consulting, Inc |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Money. That's why we're all here. That's why there is anyone out there to read this newsletter. That's why there's a newsletter to read. Most of the time when I am teaching a hydraulics class or visiting a mill on a consulting job, I am asked to translate what I am saying into dollars and cents. "How much will all of this cost? How much will it save? I have to get this approved - what immediate benefits (translated: cost-savings or increased production) can I show?" In hydraulics class, when I suggest that a $50 flow meter be installed to monitor a $7,000 pump, I can count on hearing, "Oh, they'll never go for THAT! This place is all about money - I can't even get them to keep spares on the shelf." These things are said as though there is something wrong with that. As though our primary goal should be something else and the profits secondary (or even farther down the list). But how many of us would show up for work if no money could be expected? Let's be frank here - the bottom line matters. Sure, there are other important considerations. But without the bottom line, everything else becomes academic. Economic times are tough right now. Did I just state the obvious? I suppose I did, so let me do it again. Things are going to get worse before they get better. It doesn't take an economist to see it - we see it ourselves every time we fill our tanks or our grocery carts. Not many of us are holding out much hope that we will wake up tomorrow and find prices any lower than they were yesterday. It behooves us right now to produce as much as possible with the minimum waste. No, I'm not going to tell you that the answer to all of your problems is a good hydraulics class. Or that flushing your hydraulic machine will pull that bottom line on up and get you over the hump. What I AM going to suggest is that you take a good hard look at where your maintenance dollars are going. Have there been any recent outages that could have been avoided? Are your machines producing the most they can with the energy they consume? A little money invested to avoid down time or to increase efficiency will pay dividends for a very long time. And that is where we can help. We have watched this trend develop for quite a while now. And we have responded by making changes and adding to our arsenal of solutions. When belts get tightened, one of the first budgets to be cut is training. While we don't necessarily agree with this line of thinking, it makes it no less of a reality. So we built a Mobile Hydraulic Training Lab to provide hands on training in public workshops around the country. No longer is it necessary to have an instructor to a plant for technicians to attend hydraulics class. Companies can now send as many or as few students as can be budgeted and scheduled. Oil prices have skyrocketed. And don't appear to be coming down any time soon. Most of you have reservoirs full of perfectly good hydraulic oil that only needs to be properly cleaned, not changed. So we have begun offering system flushing as a consulting option. For about the cost of changing oil in one large reservoir, we can deliver a flushing machine AND train your people how to use it. Our Field Service Hydraulic Troubleshooting training has been showing immediate, measurable results in downtime reduction, safety awareness, fluid maintenance and overall troubleshooting skills for a couple of years now. The instructor works directly with the maintenance staff without interrupting their daily schedule or interfering with production. These classes pay for themselves before they are even completed and continue to benefit for the long term. Off site consulting can save the cost of sending a consultant to your plant. Sometimes we just have to be there to help. But whenever we can assist without physically traveling to a facility, we can offer a greatly reduced consulting rate. We don't plan to stop there. Our next big innovation will be online learning. Keep an eye on our newsletter and our website where you will be notified when it is fully developed. We know about bottom lines. And this is our fourteenth year of dedication to yours. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Jack Weeks entered GPM’s organization in January of 1997 as a CAD draftsman and hydraulic instructor. He has trained thousands of electricians and mechanics in Hydraulic Troubleshooting methods. His computerized animations have made GPM's presentations and training CD's the recognized leader in the industry. He received his education from the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Electrical Engineering and the Department of State Foreign Service Institute. Jack is an experienced draftsman and taught telecommunications equipment operation and repair for the Central Intelligence Agency at American embassies overseas. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2. The GPM Grapevine | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Robin Garner
- GPM Training Coordinator
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Travel and development. Those have been the two themes around the office lately. Everyone is either gone or hard at work developing troubleshooting manuals. Al conducted a site survey at a shingle plant in Savannah, GA, went on a consulting job in south Alabama to a sawmill to help increase the speed of a log merchandiser and visited a plywood plant in the Florida panhandle to help increase the speed of their lathe. He also taught two Troubleshooting Proportional Valve Systems classes, one in a sawmill in northeast North Carolina and one in an injection molding plant in Easley, SC. When he has been in town, he has been doing technical writing on troubleshooting manuals for paper mills in Austell and Conyers, GA. Alan taught an in-plant Troubleshooting OSB Hydraulics class in Cordele, GA, an in-plant Field Service Hydraulic Troubleshooting class at a shingle plant in Savannah, GA, a public Maintenance Basic Hydraulic Troubleshooting class in Statesville, NC and helped a large door manufacturer in Athens, GA with some hydraulic issues. In between trips he has been drawing schematics and developing troubleshooting manuals for a paper mill and a large tire manufacturer. Jack has taught Maintenance Basic Hydraulic Troubleshooting Classes in Blytheville, AR, LaGrange, GA and Fresno, CA. He had to get on an airplane for the Fresno class, so we had to listen to him gripe for about a week afterward as we usually do when he has to fly. I didn't have much sympathy - he and his wife Renee flew to Las Vegas first, spent some time there and then drove the rest of the way. While he has been in town, he has been helping with course development and has resumed work on our Troubleshooting Pneumatic Systems class that we will be introducing soon. I've been doing a lot of publishing for all of these manuals they've worked on while coordinating the classes. Accounting has kept me pretty busy, too. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Robin Garner, GPM’s Training Coordinator, joined the organization in 2004. In addition to coordinating the training classes, she also does the desktop publishing for GPM's troubleshooting manuals. Robin also manages the marketing and accounting for the company. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
3. In-plant consulting and troubleshooting
Nothing is more expensive than unscheduled down time. GPM’s customers know they can call whenever they have a troubleshooting issue they simply can’t resolve. With over 50 years experience dealing with hydraulic failures, our consultants have the resources to help troubleshoot whatever hydraulic problem you encounter. Whether you’re experiencing a total system outage, repeated component failure or just need a professionally designed preventive maintenance schedule, the consultants at GPM can help. Call GPM for In-plant Troubleshooting Leakage Problems Pressure Settings Shock Problems Preventive
Maintenance Scheduling Hydraulic Troubleshooting Manual Development Startup
Consulting and Recommendations Heat
Problems Repeated
Component Failures Speed Problems Do you want to learn more on how GPM can help you? Go to http://gpmhydraulic.com/troubleshooting.htm
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Troubleshooting Proportional Valves The complete guide to troubleshooting and maintaining linear positioner circuits with electronically controlled proportional valves. The same manual used in our acclaimed Troubleshooting Proportional Valves public seminar. $49.95 + Shipping & Handling To order this and other exciting products online, visit the GPM Store!
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
4. When Can We Expect Hydraulic Oil To Get Cheaper? You may or may not have noticed that hydraulic oil prices have skyrocketed. It has been all we can do to keep our PowerPoint files up to date when we discuss in class how much a leak costs. The last quote we got? Hold onto your hats - $15 a gallon for some oils! Most oil is less than that of course, but not by much. Why is it so expensive? When will the price come down? The bad news is, it's probably not. We heard recently that the United States alone consumes over 882 tons of oil per day. This is about a fourth of the world's consumption, which means that total consumption is four times that amount. By some estimates, this means that the total world supply of oil will be depleted in about 40 years at this rate. We aren't sure how accurate that deadline might be, but one thing we can be pretty sure of is that we can't expect any of our vendors to be running clearance sales any time soon. There has never been a better time to start working a little harder to extend the life span of the oil in your machines. Summer is coming - get a handle on those heat problems! Nothing shortens the life span of oil like high temperatures. And reclaiming the oil in your machines instead of replacing it begins to look more and more cost effective all of the time. We've done the research and have found the most effective flushing machine for its cost.
If you're concerned about the cost of oil and would like to learn more about reclaiming it instead of replacing it, call us right away at (770) 267-3787 or email us at gpm@gpmhydraulic.com |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Troubleshooting Proportional Valves 2008 Click Here for a Full Description of the Workshop 8 Hour Course Registration Fee $450.00 Per Person. Save $100 if attended in conjunction with our three-day Maintenance Hydraulic Troubleshooting workshop
Only $350.00 If Attending Our 3-Day Maintenance Hydraulic Troubleshooting Workshop The Same Week. (See 2008 MHT Schedule Below) Learn How To Troubleshoot and Maintain Linear Positioner Circuits with Electronically Controlled Proportional Valves
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Maintenance Hydraulic Troubleshooting 2008 3 Day Course Registration Fee $850.00 Per Person Learn More About Our Maintenance Hydraulic Troubleshooting Course
*For Only $350.00 More Attend Our Troubleshooting Proportional Valves Workshop The Same Week. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
If you've found our newsletter informative and beneficial please click here to tell your co-workers and friends.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Hydraulic Schematic Symbols Explained This interactive CD is the fastest, easiest way available to learn hydraulic schematic symbols.$49.95 + Shipping & Handling. Find out more, go to http://gpmhydraulic.com/symbolcd.htm
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Site Index [Home] [Our Training] [Hydraulic Consulting] [Our People] [Hydraulics Quiz] [Upcoming Events] [Contact Us] GPM Hydraulic Consulting, Inc. Box 1376 Monroe, GA 30655 (770) 267-3787 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
beside a date
indicates that our exclusive one-day Troubleshooting Proportional
Valve Systems workshop will be conducted at the same location
and may be included with your Maintenance Hydraulic
Troubleshooting workshop for just $350!