As a manufacturer of polyolefins, engineering plastics and high-performance plastics for dozens of industries, Polymer Industries is unmatched in the breadth of its product line. Its seven plants throughout the U.S. relyon compressed air for processing applications such as sheet extrusions and press molding. The compressed air systems in the main plant in Henagar drive the large chrome rolls on the extrusion lines, some of the press molds and all of the vacuum lifts. They all require a lot of pressure.
“If we go below 90 PSIG, we’re scramblin’,” said Tyler Knight, maintenance manager and project manager at the company’s two Alabama plants.
The company had an aging, unreliable 100-HP compressor and several 25-HP supplemental machines throughout the plant, often struggling to meet the system’s pressure demands. When the main machine was down, the smaller machines were all pressed into service but fell far short of keeping up with demand. When pressure dipped too low, they lost the six sheeting lines that process $6,000 worth of product per hour.
The Polymer Industries team had to add oil to the older compressor and struggled to get replacement parts. Plus, an expansion was being planned. “We were losing a fair amount of oil into the system,” Tyler said. “We were putting oil in that machine at least once every two weeks.”
Polymer Industries relied on its decades-long partnership with Air & Hydraulic Equipment, an independent distributor of fluid power products in nearby Chattanooga. Polymer Industries purchased two 25-HP Kaishan KRSD direct-drive rotary screw air compressors (one of which was sent to its Tacoma, WA facility) and then acquired two 100-HP KRSDs, one of which was equipped with a variable-speed drive. A recent purchase, a 50-HP KRSD unit, completed the lineup.
The KRSDs are “as good a piece of equipment as I’ve used,” Tyler said.
“It just runs, and we don’t have to pay much attention to it. We do our thing, leave it alone. It keeps chugging along.”
— Tyler Knight, Maintenance Manager, Polymer Industries
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vertically integrated design, manufacturing, and production processes