Last Updated on 2 years by Lajos SZABÓ

Gas cylinder refurbishment process

In this series of article, I target to spread the LEAN philosophy in the field of Gas cylinder refurbishment and maintenance.

Lean technology

What is the LEAN? The simplest definition of the LEAN is: to reach a definitive target on a specified quality with the less effort and energy. The LEAN always put the customer into the central. The customer has to specify what is the value? What is the target. Of course it is matter what is the value what he/she is ready to pay.

Probably you know the market research situation:

Market research on gas cylinder refurbishmentIs this new product good?

Market Research

1. Yes
2. It is fantastic
3. First class

And would you use it?
• Certainly
• Of course

…and then: how much would you pay for it?
• Well….
• I need to think about it.
• Nothing
• 0 EUR

After this we should ask a question from ourselves if we created a real value or just spent some time and energy.

According Taiichi Ohno- the founder of the lean philosophy:

We should start the lean philosophy to define the value by intention. This definition has to be connected to a real product with defined parameters on a defined price level. We create this specification through a conversation with the customer.

What is the product? We will focus on the gas cylinder refurbishment service in our article series.

SAFETY: well documented maintenance according to the referred standards. We do this with the aim to use the gas cylinder could be keep in service with safety as long as we can.

The biggest player on this field are the gas factories. Just a quick and not complete list in alphabetic order: Air Liquide, Air Poducts, Istrabenz, Linde , Messer, Praxair, SAPIO, SIAD, SOL…

The partners’ main product what they sell is not the gas cylinder. They like to sell gas or they like to use gas. The gas cylinder is just a necessary bad thing. If it won’t be necessary, then they would not buy it. In spite of that the gas cylinder renting fee is rather high it just gives a small portion of the gas factories income. If they could sell the gas without cylinders then probably I would write an article about my hobby, about the beekeeping and the PWENT LTD would not trade with gas cylinder refurbishment machines.

Different companies have different requirements. Remember, keep your focus on the customer. The Hungarian world champion bar mixer Mr. András Lajsz has the following conversation in a TV show:

(Reporter) – Is it true if you open a bottle of Champagne, it should not give even a small sound?
(Mr. Lajsz András) – if the customer wants I could shoot his eyes with the cork

It is a little bit extreme but I regularly say on the gas field: If the customer asks us to paint small little pink butterflies on the gas cylinders, then we should calculate a price for it.

Beside the basic product – SAFETY- we could talk about many products on the field of maintenance what the customer wants to pay for:
used gas cylinders

Cylinders blue painted

Aesthetics

If there is not safety issue against the cylinders and the color on the cylinders is recognizable then it fulfills the standards requirements. This could be some paint patches on the next or on the body. Even if it is a peeled of and bad quality, bad condition paint. Against this you could have a good quality powder paint, applied after a shoot blasting. The paint is UV and corrosion proof, stand against the physical impacts. The quality could mean a hardly readable manual stamping under the paint surface or a well contoured, stamping done by a dot marking machine.
Quality could mean rusty protection cap or rusty neck ring or could means a well refurbished cap and neck ring thread. The market will be stronger and stronger you have to consider the customer needs. While on the medical gas field the requirements and the GMP manufacturing set a high level aesthetic standard, the requirements are not so strict on the other field. If you want to judge that you provide a good quality to your customers then you should work with scuba divers.
According to my experience the divers has almost personal relation with the gas cylinders, so if you have some quality problem then in a very short time you will know about it.

Cylinder – Refurbishment System

Cleanliness

Outer or inner. An outer cleaniness could be handled with a manual wire brush, and a painting roller but we could manage this with a close cycle conveyor painting system with shoot blasting, powder painting, and baking owen. In the first method we could expect on remaining old paints and corrosion. The foot and the foot ring – most corrosive part of the cylinder – have to handle separately with a rather big manual work.

cylinders 3

Many times the maintenance company use the pressure testing pad’s inverter part to clean and paint the foot of the cylinders. This is decreasing the capacity of the testing bench. It is up to your agreement with your partners what they are looking for and what they are paying for.
gascylinder outer surface

Some of the gas factories just clean the inner part of the cylinders if the safety standard is required or it is necessary for the safe inside inspection. Other gas factories clean the inner part of the cylinder automatically in case of medical or food application. It is a question if it is a basic service, advantage in the competition or it is an extra service on the specific market.

Time and speed

Libra

gas cylinder refurbishment time and moneyThe lost money because of standing has to be paid by somebody. The investment – here the gas cylinder – is good when every days is earning money through all of its life. It is matter how many time we are losing during the 5-10 years retesting cycle. The partner’s interest is to receive the cylinder back within days. Today the market expectation is that to receive the cylinders back within 2 weeks. If the refurbishing company is giving back the cylinders after maintenance within 2 weeks without any problem, then the customer is satisfied. What will happened if the customer asked back the cylinder iwthin 3 days? What would happened if we could just have 1 day for the cylinder maintenance? Is it possible? We have this intention and not just as an extra. The multinational companies like to think in CAPEX nowadays. “CASH is the KING” with small investment generate big money flow and they are expecting fast return. Compare the gas users need and the number of the cylinders the ratio of the available number of cylinders are decreasing. Instead of buying new cylinders, the gas factorie prefer the optimized cylinder management and to pull the older cylinder again from parking position into the continuous cycling. It is forbidden now to have cylinder what are put aside. For the maintenance of the current cylinders has fewer time nowadays not to cause a loss and supply problem.