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Working with Conair: Turnkey Solutions

Delivering Your Plastic Processing Turnkey Solutions

If you’re facing an upcoming expansion, replacement or greenfield facility, you need an expertly designed turnkey equipment system. However, plant managers and engineers like you may not have the time, resources or bandwidth to tackle large equipment projects.

At Conair, our projects and system design team engineers and executes over 300 systems a year — and can do the same for your facility.

In addition to undertaking robust system design, we’ll provide application-guaranteed equipment and experienced installation teams that set you and your operators up for success from the start.

The result? A turnkey system that keeps your plant running efficiently and profitably.

Table of contents

  • Learning your facility’s needs
  • Designing your turnkey system
  • Internal kickoff
  • Customer kickoff
  • Production and installation
  • Ongoing customer care

Plastics Processor using Conair Equipment

 

Learning your Facility’s Needs

You’ll begin with your local sales representative and the regional sales manager to discover more about what your system needs to accomplish. Depending on the system complexity and our experience working together, we may begin with a site visit and walkthrough of existing facilities.

The quoting process will begin with questions like:

  • What processes are you needing equipment for?
  • How far will you be conveying?
  • How many pounds of material will you move per hour?
  • What is the makeup of the material (type, percentage, bulk density)?
  • For new plants or significant expansions, what kinds of operations will need to be accommodated?
  • What are your site safety, accessibility and/or policy requirements?

You can expect: A detailed line of questioning and a team committed to thoroughly understanding your system requirements.

Designing your Turnkey System

This information is then passed along to an internal systems engineer. They will use your requirements for throughput, distances, processing needs and production goals to calculate piping sizes and to identify and size the right equipment.

Conair has a selection of over 450 plastics auxiliary processing products; it’s their job to stitch the right pieces together in the most optimal manner for your facility. Systems engineers may also pull in the guidance of product managers — “Do I need a 15 or 20 horsepower pump here?” — for more complex configurations.

This design process also gives us a chance to share insights on potential areas of improvements. Maybe you’ve tasked us with implementing uniform controls or finding cost efficiencies. Or perhaps we’ve identified a way to more efficiently convey regrind. Regardless, you can rest assured that we’ll leverage our experience to achieve a best-fit design.

But don’t just take our word for it — here’s what recent customers have to say about our design capabilities.

“We’ve worked with them from square one: Looking at how much material we’re blending on a daily basis, how many production lines we support, all the different percentages of resin blend. Conair took that and designed the system for us.”
— Paul Slomkowski, Amcor

“That’s one thing I love, they’re not wasting my time by throwing out a sales pitch for something that’s not going to work in our facility. They’ll tell us, ‘I think this will great for you,’ or, ‘This is something you might want to look at in the future.’ They show us the information and let us decide whether or not we want to move in that direction.

— Bryan Saint, Intralox

Finally, estimators will calculate installation, commissioning and training costs to go alongside the system design drawings for the complete quote. After reviewing with your team, you can make any necessary changes and we’ll update the quote as needed.

You can expect: Guidance from our team of 16 senior engineers and 6 product development leaders, all averaging 22+ years of experience.

Internal Kickoff

Once your team has approved the quote and the official order comes in, that’s when our internal kickoff begins.

While other suppliers may have two or three project managers on staff (or force sales reps to act as project managers), we have 12 project managers with an average of 15 years’ experience — and during this stage, one will be assigned to your account to see the project all the way through commissioning. They’ll be your single point of contact and keep communications streamlined.

The sales, engineering team, production scheduling, service technician and systems engineering teams will also join the project. During this stage, it’s all about going over the system with a fine-tooth comb; having an all-hands-on-deck approach at this early stage allows each team to use past experiences to address any potential issues before they happen.

Together, the team will:

  • Review all equipment and configurations for accuracy.
  • Verify lead times and make sure nothing conflicts with deadlines.
  • Determine approximate installation timeline to begin scheduling service specialists for startup.
  • For replacements, choreograph decommissioning and rolling upgrades to minimize disruptions.
  • For expansions, plan necessary equipment and controls integration.

This is also when the team will discuss small details that may have not come up in the quoting process, but are nonetheless important to a successful installation. Something as simple as confirming your ceiling height is 40 feet instead of the standard 20 feet will make a big difference in how much tubing we order for the install — these are the components we get nailed down so there are no surprises.

You can expect: Detail-oriented project management and an airtight plan for your install.

Customer Kickoff

Depending on the size of the project, we’ll either go on-site or do the kickoff with your team remotely. Whoever at your company is responsible for overseeing installation and the implementation of the system should be present.

All the project paperwork will be provided via a shared folder (we use OneDrive); we’ll share it beforehand and go over it during the kickoff.

Your standard documentation package will include:

  • System drawings
  • Bill of Materials (BOM’s)
  • Gantt chart
  • Scope of Work (SOW)
  • Equipment spec sheets
  • Manuals

Further, if you require more thorough documentation (such as layout drawings that show the placement of machinery, materials and water distribution systems, flow drawings mapped in CAD or detailed electrical drawings of each nuance of the control system) we can provide those as well.

The length of this kickoff can vary from a few hours to a half day depending on the scope— but regardless, plan on blocking out the time and reviewing the documentation package ahead of time for a seamless meeting.

You can expect: Both teams to come together and finalize all components of the design and install.

Production and Installation

Your order then goes into production at our world-class manufacturing and assembly facilities in Franklin, Pennsylvania, Pinconning, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois. There, our teams ensure consistent quality and procurement efficiency for your equipment orders.

You can also count on your project manager to remain in constant contact during the build, shipping, installation and startup phases of your project. They’ll keep you informed on any changes and make sure the rest of the Conair team is doing everything necessary to hit your deadlines and goals.

Ahead of commissioning, your project manager will send you an online form to make sure your facility is ready for site start up.

Think of it as a helpful pre-startup checklist — it will confirm:

  • The scheduled startup date still works.
  • The best way to contact you for any modifications.
  • Equipment has been mounted in its final run location
  • Power and water supply is connected to equipment.
  • Whether you’ll have material ready for us to process.

We work with our own crews (deeply experienced and employed on mission critical projects) and contractor installers as well. Our contractors have worked with us for many years and are Conair equipment certified.

Or, if you want to self-install and simply add on a Conair site supervisor, we can facilitate that as well. This ensures equipment is still installed to the highest standard and there’s someone on the job with plastics auxiliary equipment expertise

Regardless of which makes sense on your project, you’ll have Conair expertise that knows the equipment inside and out.

Crews can complete all aspects of the install, including rigging, piping, plumbing, mechanical installation and control wiring, depending on the needs of the job. They’ll ensure the system is running and meets your performance expectations.

Conair will then train your team on how to operate equipment properly and optimally. This startup training will put your on-the-ground team in the best position to maintain safety, uptime and profitability

You can expect: Installation conducted by technicians that know the equipment inside and out.

Ongoing Customer Care

All Conair equipment is supported by the Uptime Guarantee, which states that all equipment will perform as expected or better, and will rarely, if ever, be the cause of unplanned downtime. And if the equipment does not perform as expected, Conair will take ownership of the problem, fix or replace any equipment needed, and work with the customer to ensure that uptime objectives are met.

If a part of your system isn’t functioning as intended, these are the resources at your disposal:

Spare parts

If production lines are down and on-hand parts aren’t available, you need components that can ship on a dime. We draw from an inventory of 50,000 line items and 1.5 million parts in all. And 81.3 percent of parts orders ship from Conair within 48 hours — helping you get back to full operation as fast as possible

24/7 Technical service

For starters, we have a wealth of manuals, spec sheets and technical documents available online when questions arise about your equipment.

But sometimes what you need is an expert to talk you through a problem — that’s where our 24/7 technical service comes in.

Expect an answer to your service call within 17 seconds of dialing (that’s how fast we’ve answered 94.6% of calls). Our service reps pride themselves on understanding the problem and working towards a solution; 92.9% of all service events are resolved with phone support.

And if assistance is still needed on-site, a team can be on-site as soon as possible, depending on location and urgency.

Preventative maintenance programs

We’re in the business of extending the productive life of your equipment — and this will in turn help you optimize skilled labor, trim maintenance dollars and maximize.

A tailored preventative maintenance program will meet your needs and budget and include audits, recommendations, parts and supplies, upgrades and personnel training so you can get the most out of your system.

Ongoing training

Regular employee training can dramatically improve performance, safety, profitability and uptime. We offer customized training solutions for every type of equipment we sell, shaped to meet your operational and maintenance requirements and set your operators up for long-term success.

You can expect:  A service team that averages 13.9 years of experience and is larger than any other plastics auxiliary company — meaning you’re getting the best equipment support in the industry.

What are your upcoming system projects?

And do you have an equipment partner that will prove their worth from start to finish? At Conair, we build and install systems optimized for your operation and your bottom line. Start a conversation with a Conair representative today.