Compressed Air Best Practices - October 2008 - (Page 50) | 10/08 Compressed Air Industry AUTOMOTIVE TRANSIT | GROWTH IN ALBERTA: NORTHWEST EQUIPMENT In addition, we send these millwrightsin-training to the factory service training programs provided by our vendors (CompAir, Tuthill and Airtek). We will pay for the training for them as it further focuses their expertise. Journeymen millwrights make very good wages with Northwest Equipment. The training program is set up to build the candidates into a career. The Journeyman Millwright earns $27 per hour. We pay our trainees 60/70/80/90% of the Millwright rate in their training years one through four. When they pass the Millwright test they begin at 100% of the rate. Northwest Equipment currently has two ticketed millwrights (one has Red Seal) on staff. We have five others who are in the training program. Service Coordinators Cindy McKinnon, Patti Van der Meer and Tracey Bruno of Northwest Equipment. Please describe your business with “standard industry.” We provide compressed air to all industries. We have veteran employees with long relationships with the woodworking shops, the bakeries, the food and drug industry, meat packing plants, blow molding plastics and mining and lumber….to name a few industries using compressed air. Our primary focus is to supply compressed air systems in Western Canada. We do supply special packages into other parts of Canada. In Quebec, for example, we do a lot of work with the aluminum foundry businesses. We fabricate special compressed air packages, which can withstand their high-ambient temperatures in the foundries. They install air compressors on the bridge cranes so the operators have utility air (like for impact wrenches to open the castings). Another area we’ve had success is in HVAC packages on high-rise buildings. We’ve converted a lot of piston compressors to rotary vane air compressors. Each high-rise building probably has two to four 15–20 horsepower (hp) air compressors in their mechanical areas for control air. We have done a lot of retrofits with Variable Speed Drive rotary vane air compressors packaged with storage tanks. High-rise buildings are large energy consumers and the property management companies (like GWL and Oxford Properties) are focused on energy savings. We are seeing about 30% energy savings with our packages. 50 www.airbestpractices.com http://www.airbestpractices.com
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