31st October, 2007: You Are Not Alone In Your Battle With Dust
Dust, such a simple word for such a big problem. Everyone has dust issues to deal with like dust bunnies under the bed, and dust on the TV screen, to more serious dust issues like those with allergies and asthma. Dust however is not just a home problem; manufacturing companies have dust issues as well. One well-known company that really has to protect against dust is the semiconductor industry, but companies like Bigelow Tea have big dust issues as well.
The dust we deal with comes mainly from moving the blended tea/herbs through our packaging process. As the product is packaged, smaller particles can get air born and then drift into areas we do not want it to. Tea dust creates friction on moving parts and when you are producing tea bags at 350 tea bags a minute, there are a lot of moving parts,
Our high-speed equipment does not react well to dust. Dust can cause friction on parts that are turning at high speeds and cause them to heat up and wear out sooner. Our electronic parts also prefer clean air to operate in. If we do not keep dust minimized then productivity can drop, reliability can drop and the quality of our product could suffer.
We have done several things over the years to minimize dust in our equipment and in the production room like installing vacuum ports to remove dust at the source, wiping down the equipment during the production run, and at the end of the week we disassemble the equipment to do a deep cleaning.
Bigelow spends a lot of time and money focusing on minimizing dust and removing it from our environment to keep our machines running, and our tea tasting its best. So next time you sit down and relax after fighting your dust issues, have a cup of tea and remember that you are not alone in your battle with dust.
Dean
Posted by Dean at 6:00 am |
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