Progress Paradox

“And I must say: I find the liberating power of adversity to be one of the more disquieting facts of life.”
- John H. Lienhard

In Episode 1603 of The Engines of Our Ingenuity, Lienhard discusses the adverse life, imprisonment, and great grief of Galileo. It seems that absent the opportunity provided by Galileo’s isolation he might never have performed his world changing work that has done so much to shape modern engineering, material science and astronomy. And, Lienhard’s writing as well as numerous other texts, such as “Selling Soap. Literally” in this month’s Fast Company, go a long way to show how adversity can spawn innovation.

West Cryogenics’ move into manufacturing is a case in point. Long interested in developing and producing new products, the company was always “too busy” to move forward in this area. The downturn following the 9/11 tragedy and some other unexpected turns created a unique moment where time, talent and market converged allowing for development of West’s Ultra Series liquid delivery vessels. The follow up development of GOrilla portable cryogenic vessels and packaged systems along with Dragon vaporizers has now positioned West Cryogenics as a nationally recognized manufacturer of quality solutions for cryogenic liquid argon, oxygen and nitrogen delivery and gas use systems.

T. Boone Pickens’ writing introduced me to the phrase “It’s root hog or die.” And that is often the case. Current rooting is leading to the development of several new product lines, systems, and relationships that will not only sustain through tough times, but also create opportunities to thrive in times of plenty.

None of us wish for tough times to make us better and the fact they can is indeed disquieting. It is also a reassurance for those who have stared into the abyss and found inspiration, innovation and purpose that we might otherwise have been too busy to see.

Cleaning for Oxygen Service

What is CFOS and why do we care?

CFOS is an acronym for Clean (Cleaned or Cleaning) For Oxygen Service. It is critical that parts used for pure or high concentration Oxygen service be properly cleaned to assure they are free of all flamable and toxic residue or contamination. This is both to help reduce risks of fire or explosions as well as to prevent poisoning in medical gas applications.

Concerns related to liability often inhibit companies and individuals from sharing procedures and other information to the degree they might like to. Anyone involved in the cleaning or use of parts and equipment for Oxygen service needs to take all proper care, though, to be sure that the work they are doing is safe...... both for themselves, those using their products and those around the products. A lot of the Clean for Oxygen Service work done involves lower pressure and lower temperature medical gas and industrial applications. It is very possible that requirements might vary due to different applications and conditions so be sure the information you are using matches your use.

There are some really good resources for gathering information on this subject for development of procedures and testing methods.

First, is the Compressed Gas Association and this link http://www.cganet.com/customer/publication_detail.aspx?id=G-4.1 will take you to their a specific guideline publication. They can also have numerous other publications and can direct you to resources that might have specific information for your application. You might also want to check with the Cryogenics Society at www.cryogenicsociety.org. And then there is a company (Modern Chemical, Inc.) who makes a product called BlueGold Cleaner that is considered an industry standard for many applications. You can find them at http://www.bluegoldcleaner.com.

Many people have great cleaning procedures, but lack controls for cleaned parts. Full prepartion will also consider use of black and white light inspection procedures, proper drying methods and sealed bagging/tagging/storage of parts that will not be used immediately.

Investment in Medical Liquid Oxygen Delivery

Yesterday’s post discussed a fairly easy to evaluate choice between the purchase of a new 210 gallon Ultra vessel or reconditioned 190 gallon. It is pretty much a no-brainer to see the value of investing a few thousand dollars for additional capacity to allow 1-3 extra fills per day when the client base is there.

What if you have an opportunity to use a 500 or 850-gallon GOrilla vessel for delivery? The 500 or 850 truck, vessel and upfit could be $20,000 to $30,000 or more over what it takes to set up a smaller truck with a 210 class vessel.

Surprisingly enough, there are cases where the economics strongly favor use of a larger vessel. This is particularly true for more institutional providers who are serving extended care facilities, contract filling for others or running multiple trucks in a concentrated area. In some of these cases, a single driver with a larger vessel has been able to do the work in a standard work week previously requiring multiple drivers with overtime.

Granted- the Law of Marginal Utility applies and you can have too much of a good thing. Balance remains the key. The point here is that vendors with alternative outlooks can be an asset and open up ways of looking at business that might otherwise be missed. Helping clients find ways to save money through improved operations or open opportunities to grow their business is a joy. It is even more fun when it is possible to do both- Save and Grow.

Expense or Investment- Medical Liquid Oxygen Delivery

If you pay $2000 more for a new 210 gallon liquid oxygen delivery vessel than you might pay for a reconditioned, used 190 gallon vessel is that an expense or an investment?

Of course, it depends. The dependent factors center around Opportunity Costs. If you have all the capacity you need to fill all your clients each delivery day and have no opportunity to for growth or efficiency improvement then a larger tank is just an expense. This would be especially true if you pay more for the larger vessel.

On the other hand, what about the client who fills his current 190s six times a week to go fill Nursing Home and other group clients? This drivers for this company are regularly (almost daily) showing up at sites, filling, and leaving without having completed filling of all empty vessels. Now they are adding trucks and trying to decide. For this client, the additional $2000 they might spend would be fairly easy to justify. Currently, all the expense of getting to the client has been incurred, but they are leaving money behind when they leave. With a slightly larger vessel the driver would have the opportunity each day to increase billing by $25 to $100 without incurring any additional incremental expense. In this case, the total time to recover the additional capital invested would be from one to three months. They would then keep making money on that investment for years to come. It is no real wonder that there are so many smaller vessels showing up in the used equipment market.

Jay Levinson pointed out in Guerilla Marketing that one of the greatest failures is the Failure to Exploit. Hmmmm……..

Liquid Oxygen Delivery: Safety and Compliance Considerations

Respiratory management has an article this month that provides some resource links related to homecare liquid oxygen delivery. You can access it at http://respiratorymgmt.com/articles/2009/06/01/liquid-oxygen-delivery.aspx

A Better Fix for Less?

A client called this morning inquiring about current pricing for 350psi (4L-292) cryogenic liquid cylinders (VGLs) and said his customer’s are requesting them instead of the 235psi (4L-200) VGLs he has been providing. Interestingly enough, he was also requesting repairs on six of his liquid cylinders with a note to be sure and check the pressure builders.

Possibility: End users have been cranking down on the pressure builders of his liquid cylinders to try and get more flow out of them.

The rub is that the flow from a DOT 4L-200 or a 4L-292 is just almost identical (+/- 300scfh depending on the model and whether you are vaporizing liquid oxygen, nitrogen or argon). So, higher pressure will not make higher flow. What will provide extra flow is to add some downstream vaporization allowing for a doubling or more of the gas withdrawal rate.

Suggestion: Put a hang-on Vap on the liquid cylinder at a cost of around $1000 to $2000. This is:

a) a lot less expensive than purchasing six new higher pressure liquid cylinders at $2000 to $3000 each;
b) actually better since it solves the problem which the new liquid cylinders would not;
c) and keeps the existing liquid cylinders in service and generating revenue.

Granted- this is assuming that the real issue is flow. We discussed visiting with the customer first to get a better idea of their application. There are just so many more applications that run at 80 to 110psi versus over 200psi means that it is likely they really don’t need 350psi liquid cylinders.


Pay a lot less and get what you really need? Hmmm.........

The "DO" Verb and Excellence

This past weekend presented an opportunity to go back through part of Tom Peters’ “A Passion for Excellence.” One passage recaptured my attention as it has for years. A business school group is discussing Disney’s success and one team is pointing out their “obsessive commitment to park cleanliness” as one possible contributor to it. Another group notes that “Anybody can provide a clean park.” Same goes for McDonald’s and their “uniformly high standards of service” where again there is a group that contends “anyone can do that.”

As Tom concludes: “Anyone can, but only McDonalds does.”

His point: Anyone can do a lot of things. Some actually do.

Bulk Cryogenic Portability and Utility

Can any horizontal cryogenic storage tank be fitted with a road valve and used for liquid transport?

No. Many horizontal cryogenic liquid storage vessels are manufactured for stationary use only. The support structures for their inner vessel, outside shell strength and other factors are built more simply than those designed to handle the stresses and strains of portable service. Vessels manufactured for portable service have advertising, specifications or other material specifically designating them as portable. Since portables will inevitably be a bit higher priced than stationary vessels the manufacturer will certainly want to make a point of their portability.

Also, some portable vessels are designed for transporting liquid only and are not intended for gas use. Others might have gas use outlets, but they need to be properly piped in order to use them for gas withdrawal service. Just connecting to an outlet marked “Gas” might not assure you a proper operation for gas service. Many vessels have the outlet present to make gas an available option, but lack the proper plumbing to be used effectively for gas service such as pressure building regulators, economizer regulators and economizer circuits.

More and more users are becoming aware of the convenience of operating with mid-sized portable cryogenic bulk tanks at 500 to 850 gallons or more capacity. If you are purchasing a new or reconditioned cryogenic tank it will be helpful to define your needs and be sure the vessel meets them. Odds are you might want to use the tank for something else one day or sell it so you might also want to be sure is fitted with everything you need which could include:

- Full-sized standard fill connections,
- Liquid withdrawal connections,
- Gas use connections,
- Pressure building vaporization and regulator,
- Economizer regulator and plumbing,
- Sufficient external gas use vaporization,
- Dual reliefs,
- Road valve,

While all this might sound a bit trite or redundant, it might surprise you to know how often costly assumptions are made.