Considering the state of the economy in United States of America, 2009 has been a reasonably good year for Gem Equipment.  Sales volume in dollars is down significantly.  A substantial portion of the reduction is due to a lower price for stainless steel.  Type 304 stainless steel sheet and plate has ranged from $1.10 to 1.40 per pound; down from a peak of almost $3.00 per pound last year.  A french fry potato industry operating close to capacity has helped nudge this company toward prosperity.  As has been noted in previous issues of the Memo, field work, rebuilding and repairing processing equipment is a growing segment of the business.  Processors are using outside contractors for work that would have been performed by in-house maintenance staff in the 20th century.  Not only does the use of outside contractors reduce unproductive overhead, as technology gets more complex, it becomes difficult for maintenance workers to match the specific skills that a specialty contractor develops. 

Over the past year, this company has expended considerable effort to upgrade french fry potato fryer piping systems.  Leaks in fryer piping have been a significant concern for french fry potato processors.  Chemicals used for sanitizing these systems are rather harsh.  Even though the final cleaning step is the use of fresh water to flush out all of the clean-up chemicals, any crack or fissure, that does not drain will retrain a minute amount of chemical which can, over the years, cause corrosion to the point of failure in fryer piping.  Lack of 100% penetration in a pipe weld leaves a large enough pocket to retain enough chemicals to cause this type of failure.  Devices that enable pipe welds to be inspected from inside the pipe up to 20 feet from the nearest openings are now being used to assure weld quality.  Gem has 3 of these devices with viewers and one with a camera, so a permanent record can be made.  Another upgrade is the use of seamless pipe for carbon steel fryer piping systems.  Inspection of a considerable amount of welded carbon steel pipe revealed enough lack of full weld penetration to explain why leaks have been encountered in sections of pipe not near welded pipe joints. 

Welded connections in the pipe headers that run full length on each side of the large deluge blanchers have been upgraded.  These headers are normally 6 to 8 inches diameter with 2 ½ inch risers on about 3 foot centers.   Earlier this year, it was reported in a Gem Memo that without substantial extra cost it would be impossible to upgrade these to a full penetration weld that is sanitary on the inside.  Since these pipes contain recirculated hot water and failure had never been experienced on type 304 stainless steel piping, these welds had not been an issue. Pipe fitting and welding procedures have been upgraded to produce a sanitary weld on the inside of these header pipes.  The new procedures are at a higher cost but not prohibitively more expensive.  The upgrade of fryer piping and blancher header pipe welding follows this company’s normal approach.  Problems customers encounter with this company’s equipment in the field will be addressed.  While this process sometimes takes longer than it should, these problems ultimately get resolved.  This factor may be helping Gem progress in a difficult economy