VIDEO: TOOLING UP – Why HVLS Systems Are So Important in Manufacturing Facilities

Narrator: Welcome to Tooling Up, a series by MSC Industrial Supply Company that provides real-world insights brought to you by leading industry experts and aimed at improving the efficiency and productivity of your operations.

Eddie: Hey everybody, this is Eddie with MSC and welcome to our latest episode of Tooling Up featuring Big Ass Fans. So today we're gonna focus on how fans are so much more than just a cool breeze and to help give us some insights today we have a special member from the team over at Big Ass Fans, our good friend Adam. So Adam, hey thank you so much for joining and before we get started, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do over at Big Ass Fans?

Adam: Yeah, hey Eddie thanks for having us. Again, my name is Adam Gilley, National Distribution Sales Manager here at Big Ass Fans overseeing relationships such as the one we have with MSC.

Eddie: Very good. Hey, well, we appreciate you joining us and as always let's get jumping right in. So really fans, so much more than just the cool breeze as we stated and really with the heat it can cause a lot of negative effects not only on ourselves, the machines and our workforce in its entirety, and first I think we want to talk a little bit about heat stress. So, can you dive into that for us today?

Adam: Yeah, heat stress is one of the number one issues that we combat. All of our customers give us a call with some kind of issue and the biggest one it comes to heat stress it's that call that says hey, we had somebody go down last week or we know it's too hot and where conditions aren't suitable. The last thing that any employer wants to see is someone go down to due to a heat stress related injury, heat exhaustion, dehydration, all of those things can lead to someone passing out, becoming sick and that's not what we want especially in this world that we're living in right now where attracting employees is a number one priority. So, what we do is we look at utilizing fans from our big fans to our directional fans to our evaporative coolers, to make sure that we can provide a suitable working environment for our customers, whether that is increasing the comfort, the thermal comfort, in the facility or moving heat around and out of a facility if there is a ton of process heat.

Eddie: No, it makes sense and then in tandem with that you provide loads of solutions and have technology to back it. So, what do we need to know about your SpecLab feature?

Adam: Absolutely with the one thing we don't want to be Eddie is a cookie cutter. We know that every facility is different, there is going to be a different layout, there is no one way to do a distribution center, there's no one way to do a manufacturing facility. So what we do with our SpecLab  tool is we look at that facility, look at every obstruction from walls to racks to machines to people and see how air will move in the facility when we put in our recommendation and our solutions. So what SpecLab  is is a custom CFD analysis in which we lay in fans to show everywhere air will move and bounce off obstructions. We don't want to lay in fans on a PDF and have covered circles that go out to the parking lot and are moving the leaves on the tree out beside your vehicle. Now we know that air is going to move and take the path of least resistance, so this  spec lab tool allows us to do that and shows the customer hey, this is how fans will perform in your facility, don't just take our word, for it take the science behind it.

Eddie: No, it sounds super convenient to all of your customers. And then when we're talking about solutions that you provide, let's talk a little bit about the Powerfoil. What do we need to know?

Adam: Yeah, so the Powerfoil X3.0 is our leader in the industrial HVLS space. This is the number one selling industrial fan on the market. We are talking about a fan that is going to last 25-plus years. It is an almost maintenance-free fan and it comes with a hermetically sealed gearbox so what all that does for the customer is once that fan is up, it's up, no dust, dirt, debris is going to get into that oil bath since it is hermetically sealed. So once it is up we don't have to worry about any kind of maintenance. The other big thing here are the eight redundant safety features that come standard on this fan. That's from safety clips on the hub itself to nylon straps that run from the hub down to the winglet at the end of the blade that will keep the fan intact and the wing from dislodging if it's struck by an outside force. Now we know that people make mistakes and we and especially if you ask customer service, they've seen a ton of things that you couldn't imagine that have been ran into a fan so we want to test it, we want to listen to our customers and make sure that we're providing the safest solution out there for our customers.

Eddie: Hey, no absolutely makes sense. And so with that, do you have any examples in the field where this is being applied that you'd like to speak to?

Adam: Yeah, they're all over the world in every application you can think of. Behind me we have it in a fitness center. We have this in multiple manufacturing facilities across the country from companies that you see, hear about, and maybe drive to every day, from auto manufacturers to large-scale distribution centers from a place that may give you a box every day on your doorstep. So we've got them all over the manufacturing world, all over the distribution world, government from military down to local municipal governments and everything in between.

Eddie: Covering a wide array indeed. And then with that we're learning about benefits of having fans, but to the other side of the coin, Adam, there has to be costs of not having a fan. Why don't you give us a little bit of insight on what that looks like?

Adam: Yeah, absolutely. Unfortunately, there are a ton of costs of not having a fan. A lot of our customers are facilities that are already existing. They've already been constructed uh you know that there is not an HVAC system and sometimes not even a heating system in that facility, so there's going to be costs from an energy related play but there's also cost, the hidden cost, that no one really sees is the personnel cost.

So we spoke about how in this environment right now that we're in it's tough to retain employees, so what does that cost look like, what is the opportunity cost for having to hire and retrain somebody when you just lost your best employee to go across the street to a more suitable working environment? But then you have the back end HR cost of what does that look like when when you have somebody go down to heat stress? The other big thing is productivity. What does productivity look like when it's a hot environment that people dread coming in every day to work you know, every degree above 77 degrees you're going to lose one percent of productivity, so if we can't  provide a suitable working environment, how many dollars are you losing as a customer because you're not getting as much product out the door?

Eddie: Yeah of course. So many additional things that so many individuals really don't consider on a daily basis. So aside from heat stress there are so many other things that we can consider and one of those things comes down to air quality. Adam, what do you have when it comes to air quality, how we can improve some of this with some of your products?

Adam: Yeah absolutely. So the big thing that we see is just air mixing. You know think of some of the places that you've walked into and you think oh my gosh I can barely breathe in here. You know think of a natatorium uh any indoor enclosed pool, you know you walk in the chlorine hits you right in the mouth and you feel like you've got to climb through the air and if you're at a swim meet you don't want to be there for four hours walking out smelling like a chlorine tablet right? So we want to get air moving, we want to homogenize the air. So you know in that application, trichloramines sit right on the water level in the pool. Olympic training facilities will have tons of air movement to make sure that swimmers aren't breathing in those trichloramines as they go across the water. So how do we move that air and it's with putting fans in the facility to homogenize it. Also think of any maintenance facility from a car to an airplane maintenance facility. You're going to have the smell of gas and oil in any of your vehicle maintenance facilities, but for even going to the airport when you get out on the tarmac and you can smell that jet fuel and if it's something in which you've got your bags out there then hey, they're probably going to smell like jet fuel too. So let's get the air moving in there, let's homogenize the air so we can constantly move that so it's not just sitting in at one spot.

Eddie: Hey no, it makes sense. Nobody wants to sit around in old, stagnant air. And then additional to that we're talking about some ventilation, so what do we need to know when it comes to that?

Adam: Yeah, so a lot of these buildings as I mentioned are already up and constructed and we get conversations in which hey, we don't have enough exhaust in the facility or the systems are old. What can we do to get air moving? So ventilation is a huge piece in increasing indoor air quality. What the fans will do is it's not going to be the absolute solution to an exhaust system, but when budgets are tight and this is the solution that checks two boxes for you in the fact that you get air circulating throughout the facility and you also cool people, often this is the way to go. This is an easier solution rather than spending a hundred thousand dollars on a brand new HVAC system right?

Eddie: Right, right, so how can ignoring these problems reduce productivity?

Adam: Yeah, it comes down to creating that suitable working environment. It's making sure that if you can put workers and employees in an environment in which they want to come to work because it is comfortable and they know that they're making a great wage, you're going to increase the morale and then that will also lead into increased productivity. So again, it all comes down to what is the indoor air quality, what does the thermal comfort level look like in your facility. You know, there's so many places that we look at and work in from the manufacturing side where you have, you may have some process heat or just a distribution center where you have doors open all the time and you're constantly bringing heat in. So how do we make that space more comfortable and that's increasing air speeds going across people's skin so we make them feel more comfortable and when they're comfortable they're going to work harder.

Eddie: Okay, it definitely makes sense and so we've talked about the problem. Let's translate that now into some solutions that Big Ass Fans provides. What can you tell us about the big fan for example?

Adam: Yeah, yeah. So again, with these applications that we look at, there are going to be different areas that we look at so it's open floor areas that we can look at with a big fan to cover a large amount of space. There are also going to be individual workstations that we look and see hey, how can we best provide a solution there? That may be directional fans to make sure that we're providing air movement to that one spot. We don't want to put fans in an area where we're going to have a ton of obstructions because as I mentioned earlier, air takes a path of least resistance. So if it's over top of racks then maybe that's going to move right on top of the racks or the boxes on top of the racks and not going to get the air movement down to the level that the workers are at so we have multiple solutions that we can use, whether it's big fans paired with directional fans or paired with our evaporative coolers.

Eddie: No absolutely, then what do we need to know when it comes to the AirEye?

Adam: Yeah, so the air is our directional fan. You look at it and say hey, Adam, this is just another cage bin what's different? Our customers kept coming to us Eddie and saying I need something that's going to last longer than six to nine months and what I have is loud, it's single speed, and it gets hot and burns itself out. So we listened to that and came back with a solution that answers all those questions. So the AirEye fan is a cage fan that is going to be absolutely ahead of the game leaps and bounds. It's got an ECM direct drive motor so it's going to be quiet in operation. The great thing is there's not going to be any heat production from that motor. So it's going to cut down on any kind of burn risk if anybody bumps into it, but also it's not going the fan will not suck that hot air off of the motor and push that to the workstation. that it is uh is covering. The other thing is these fans are usually in dirty environments they're tough to clean if it's not easily accessible, so what we have on the north, south, east, and west sides of the cage are four diaper pin clips. Unclasp three of them and wipe down the blades and it's easily cleaned and you're back in business in five minutes. So easily accessible, variable speed, quiet in operation, five-year warranty, it's an industry leader across the board.

Eddie: No absolutely, love it and all relevant topics to not only the problem but the various solutions that you provide. So when it comes to additional solutions we talked about a couple of things but one thing we haven't touched upon is really the cost and energy savings that we can see. What do we need to know when it comes to that Adam?

Adam: Yeah, it's all about what's in the facility right now okay, and what you're using and maybe expired systems is the best way to look at it. Are you using less energy efficient fans right now that you're using a ton of those in the facility? We've been in multiple facilities Eddie in which they have hundreds of fans that are old, they're on their last leg, and they are using a ton of energy. So from an energy efficiency standpoint, we have the most energy efficient fans that are on the market. From an HVAC standpoint, we use the fans as an air distribution device. They're going to make you feel cooler because we're increasing the air speeds going across your skin. Also what we can do is raise that thermostat set point based on what we're doing in the facility, so if we raise that thermostat set point from 72 to 78 and use the fans to distribute the conditioned air that's being introduced, then what we can expect is for every degree we raise that thermostat, we can get a three to six percent energy savings on that HVAC-related cost. And then the flip side of it you got to remember this is a seasonal product or an all-seasons product, in which this will help with the heat in the facility. We all know heat rises. Where are those heating systems in these facilities? They're at the ceiling, so we will cut back on the usage of those. You'll introduce the heat with your forced air heaters, your tube heaters, what have you and we'll use the fans in a slow speed in the forward motion to constantly push that air down to the ground level where people are working without creating a draft so we're getting the heat off of the ceiling down to the floor. And again, we're looking to save 20 to 30 percent on the heating-related cost in those applications that we put a fan in to de-stratify the air.

Eddie: No yeah, it definitely makes sense. And if I'm someone who's running a shop floor and I'm thinking about the biggest investments that I have on that floor which would be you know my machines. How can your systems benefit or help improve the efficiency or overall life of the machines on the shop floor?

Adam: Yeah, it's about moving heat right? It's about moving air and getting some of that stagnant air away from certain things. So we know that there's applications we work in where machinery produces a lot of heat. We want to get that process heat out of there. We want to move it out of the space, so sometimes it's a fan to move that air away from the machine or what's around it. So if you've got plastics, if you've got rubbers, the last thing you want to do are melt those products because either you're going to have to replace a conveyor belt or you've lost some of the product that you just produced. So we want to expand the lifespan of what you have in there, but also everything that's surrounding it, so moving that hot air away. But also you mentioned the biggest priority in investment in the companies is sometimes the equipment but also it's those people who are working on those lines, so getting that hot air away from those folks who are going, who are key and vital into getting that product out the door.

Eddie: No this is true, this is true, and then additionally to that Adam, what do we need to know about your evaporative coolers?

Adam: Yeah, it's a new line for us Eddie, in our cold front line. So we wanted to look at that and see how we could expand our product line and make sure we answer every question so that if there is a facility that is hot, we want to be the one-stop shop. So our cold front fans, our cold front evaporative coolers, are going to be one of the most innovative evaporative coolers out on the market. So what you're going to see here in this video is it starts with the media. We've got a thick cooling media, eight-inch cooling media, that's going to absorb more water and provide a greater cooling effect than what you may see on the market now. That media is a UL green guard gold media. It's going to be resin coated so that it can take a little bit of the bumps and bruises that come into the facility. We know that these fans and these evaporative coolers may get bumped into from time to time and if you're making an investment, you want to have something that's going to hold up. The performance, the durability is great, but we're also backing that up with a five-year warranty. The bigger thing here Eddie is that we pair this with our big fans and what that does is we're going to use the evaporative cooler to introduce cool air into the facility and then we'll use the fans again as a distribution device to move that cool air throughout, and in that case we think there we know that we will see a greater cooling effect in that system by using the evaporative cooler and the fans.

Eddie: Truly, truly and then with today's conversation, we've not only covered heat stress and how we solve that issue, also air quality and how we solve that in various ways, but also talked about the many, many ways that we can produce cost and energy savings throughout our facility. So as we get ready to wrap up our episode today, Adam, what are some final thoughts that we need to know about the products that we discussed today?

Adam: Yeah, absolutely Eddie. It's all about providing the right solution for the customer, for you the customer. It's providing a safe solution for the customer and also a long-lasting solution for the customer. We want to, when we put Big Ass Fans on a fan, we want to know that it's going to be the most durable, the longest lasting, and the safest product that you can put in your facility.

Eddie: Wonderful, wonderful. And for all of our viewers, where can we get more information not only about the products that we talked about today, but all the other additional offerings that you bring to the market?

Adam: Absolutely. You can find it at mscdirect.com/bigass fans.

Eddie: All right. Hey we thank you so much for being our expert today and we thank all of you viewers for joining us on our latest episode of MSC's Tooling Up featuring Big Ass Fans.

Narrator: Want more insights and ideas to improve the efficiency and productivity of your operations? Check out the Tooling Up video playlist to see how we can help improve your operations and subscribe to our channel so you never miss out.