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Productivity Challenges In 2020

Productivity Challenges In 2020

It’s a new year in a new decade. At the start of something fresh, it’s traditional to make plans and set goals. It happens every January with new gym memberships and increased sales on romaine. We do it in our personal lives and it’s equally important to set optimistic goals for our business. January is the perfect time to create plans, set strategies and develop tactics for how to get there. During that process, look at equipment needs, personnel gaps, and potential growth opportunities. Once you start brainstorming, excitement will build and you’ll want to get moving sooner rather than later.

It’s easy to get distracted by challenges. Large and small businesses alike face productivity challenges. During these times, leaders look for ways to increase efficiency while also boosting the bottom line. At all levels, keep an eye on improvements to keep the business viable and equip it for growth.

To increase productivity, you need to ask yourself what productivity means to you. It may be better work efficiency, more project profitability, improved job safety or higher quality work produced.

Standard Tools faces these same challenges within our production so we are keenly aware of our customer’s situations. We produce products that offer an affordable way to improve production goals, making it a strong investment for your business in 2020.

Keep reading for our top 5 tips if you’re looking to buy a paint booth in 2020. What are your top goals for 2020 in your business? We’d love to hear.

Top 5 tips for buying a booth in 2020:

Have a business plan for the new year! This will define what you’re working towards and the strategic plan on how you can get there. This will also outline what your needs are and what you plan to improve.
Select the right paint booth for your needs. It all starts with what you’re painting, what your production goals are and what your investment is. We work with all budgets and can design booths for your specific needs. It’s important for you to know what your local codes and requirements are before you invest in a new booth. Trust us, this saves you a lot of time and headaches in the long run.
Set aggressive goals for the year: Look at what your production is currently and then set a realistic goal for the next 12-months. After you have done that, set an aggressive goal and write down what you need to achieve it. This could include equipment, personnel or other resources.
Do what’s comfortable for you. It’s important to make large purchase decisions with a company where you feel comfortable and with whom you can count on for advice, support and service.
Ask a lot of questions! We have a knowledgeable and friendly sales team that is here to tell you everything we know on paint spray booths. We will ask all the right questions and tell you things you need to consider in the process. We have a team of engineers that can assist in the compliance and design of your new paint booth. You can talk directly with who will be designing and producing your paint booth. Give us a call and pick our brain on everything you ever wanted to know about paint booths, and even some stuff you never knew you needed to know. It’ll help you make a more informed decision and that’s what we’re here for.

Here’s to a prosperous year of achieving your goals. We’re here to help in any way we can, so give us a call at 1-888-312-7488.

Cheers to 2020,

Kat Mendenhall

General Manager, Standard Tools and Equipment Co.

Standard Tools and Equipment Celebrates 20 Years.

Standard Tools Celebrates 20 years and 20,000 paint booths. Celebrate with us and see how the whole “Paint Booth thing” got started for us at Standard Tools and Equipment. It’s not where you might think.

“When it comes to our people, our products and the customers we serve … we are anything but Standard.”

Happy Birthday Standard Tools and Equipment Co. Continue reading Standard Tools and Equipment Celebrates 20 Years.

NEW! Heated Full Downdraft Booth.

We have designed a heated downdraft full-sized paint booth. The downdraft paint booth supplies filtered air to the booth through the full-filtered ceiling, and exhaust the chemical-containing air through filters below the grating on the floor. The air is directed downward, and the paint vapors and overspray are carried downward. So, the toxins do not pass by the painter’s breathing zone. This design is built for a pitted exhaust system. Although we provide the grating and the floor filters, we do not include the installation of the actual pit.

Since this booth is heated, the intake air is passes over the Sure-Cure direct-fired air make up unit (AMU) before it is pushed down through a full-plenum filtered ceiling.

DDGrateFloor-7filters-500 — Booth Shown: DD-1000GH, with Powder-Coating finish, LED Flat Panel Lights, Floor covering.

We provide the booth, the Sure-Cure air makeup unit, the floor grates and filters for your downdraft paint booth. We are the manufacturer and can customize your booth to fit your needs. So, if you want to add lights, have double drive-thru doors or make your booth taller, just give us a call for a custom-designed booth. Continue reading NEW! Heated Full Downdraft Booth.

Putting a Face with the Voice: The Sales and Customer Service Team

As you walk into the Standard Tools and Equipment corporate offices, the entire front hallway is made up of our customer service, sales team and marketing team. It’s a loud and bustling hallway, answering phones and having some fun along the way.

When you call in and talk to our sales and customer service team, have you ever wondered what the voice on the other end of the phone looks like? Our sales and customer service team is made up of some of the most amazing people I have had the pleasure to know and work beside. We wanted to show you a peak inside our sales center…. it’s a fun place to be. Come see us sometime!

From Left to Right:

Julie Surprenant: Paint booth rock star. Loves to talk to customers from her home state of Rhode Island or fans of her beloved Red Sox. Her office is covered in Red Sox gear and her son’s beautiful artwork. You can tell from talking to her that she’s not “from around these parts”…. and we love that about her.
Fabiola Martinez: Tools USA and Eagle sales and customer service. Makes the most amazing empanadas that everyone in the office can’t get enough of. Seriously, we beg…. it’s sad and pathetic, but they’re that good. She also covers our Spanish sales line.

Wayne Piner: Eagle Sales, Parts and Customer Service. Loves coaching in his spare time and has mastered the art of working with so many women (and acting like he doesn’t love every minute of it.)

Jennifer Patterson: Sales. Specializing in paint booth sales and customer service. The newest member of our team, Jennifer has a gazillion post-it notes at her workspace. She loves talking to people, and you will enjoy her very southern accent! (She may also slip a ‘sweetie’ or a ‘Hun’ in there).

Bill Daliege: Problem solver. Parts orderer. Manual writer. Detail fixer. Has been with us 10 years and is familiar with the “vintage Eagle machines”. He loves to help you out …. just don’t touch his hat.

Michelle Duncan: Michelle is the team’s cheerleader and coach. You’ll often find her dancing in the hallways, bringing in food for someone’s birthday or helping to solve a customer’s issue.

Gina Gilchrist: Gina is the smiling face you see if you come to see us. She always has candy in her drawer and gum in her pocket, so she’s a good friend to have. She’s been with us for 10 years and can assist in solving almost any issue!

Angie Brown: She is the team’s fashionista and camera lover, and the camera loves her back! She is the most cheerful and happy person on the team, and her awesome attitude is surely contagious. If you check inside her desk, you would see that she likes Lysol wipes and multiple packets of ranch … she also always has enough sugar to get her through the day.

Not Pictured: Rosy Gonzalez: Our rock star sales and customer rep, based in Texas!

Please Don’t Crate My Paint Booth.

When you order a paint booth from Standard Tools and Equipment, it’s important that the booth gets to you in great condition. With our booths being shipped, using a third-party provider, it can be transferred from terminal to terminal until it reaches your door. Once it’s out of our hands, it’s hard to know what can happen along the way. This is why we take extra measures to ensure your booth gets to you safely and in great condition.

The most important step in preparing a booth for shipment is to create a crate for it to ship in. Have you ever stopped to think what can happen if your products are shipped without protection? Crating helps pieces remain together and provides protection from damage. It protects small parts from being misplaced and/or glass from breaking while in transit.

Loading our crates is a specialty that our loaders have down pat. Like a puzzle, they load them in tight to prevent shifting. Crating is vital in this industry and any company that will ship your booth to you un-packaged is risking your booth’s quality. Crating should not be an option, and at Standard Tools… we hope you understand why it’s not an option, it’s the only way we’ll ship your paint booth to you.

When you order a powder-coated paint booth, we actually wrap each individual panel to protect it’s finish from scrapes and scratches.

So, now you know, when you see that “crating” charge on your quote… it’s to ensure that your booth arrives undamaged. If it’s damaged in transit…. make sure that you let us know as soon as possible so we can walk you through the process of filing a claim with the shipping company. (888-312-7488).

Here are some photos of a booth that is not crated and the damage it causes. This is why it’s not optional, and shouldn’t be optional from any manufacturer.

Powder Coating Process on Your Spray Booth: in Photos

We can talk all day long about the benefits of getting your paint booth powder coated white. We actually have a great blog on all the benefits. What better way than to show you how we powder coat your booth, from beginning to shipping … in photos.

STEP ONE:

The paint booth panels are off of the production line and ready to be sent to the Powder Coating area. Once in the powder coating area, the panels are hung up and prepped for coating. This means cleaning the metal really well to get the best adherence of powder.

Continue reading Powder Coating Process on Your Spray Booth: in Photos

Powder coating offers brilliant white booths!

Powder coating is the fastest growing finishing technology in North America, representing over 10% of all industrial finishing applications. So what is a Powder Coated Finish?

Have you ever seen a really shiny and clean metal piece and wondered what type of paint it was? It was probably a powder coated finish, which is an advanced method of applying a protective finish to practically any type of metal. It’s a sprayed powder that is a mixture of finely ground particles of pigment and resin. Once sprayed, the item is ‘baked’ at a very high temperature to cure the smooth finish and leave it with a sleek and durable ‘skin’. Here’s an old filing cabinet that we powder coated yellow.

Powder Coated Finish: The Powder Coating process provides one of the most economical, longest lasting, and most color-durable finishes available for metal. Powder coated surfaces are more resistant to weather, chipping, scratching, fading, and wearing than other finishes. Powder coatings produce no drips, runs or sags. Edge coverage and coverage inside holes and nooks is exceptional. See the process from our Powder Coating production on this new blog. Continue reading Powder coating offers brilliant white booths!

KNOW WHO YOU’RE DOING BUSINESS WITH

One of the benefits that the Internet has brought with it is the ability to find almost anything that you’re looking for from the comfort of your computer. No longer is location a barrier to doing business. Let me give you an example. Do you remember that big purple dinosaur from the 90’s, Barney? Say you’re throwing a Barney birthday party for your soon-to-be-three year old, no longer do you have to drive to a zillion stores to see who carries supplies from that popular children show from 25 years ago. Now, you can hop on Amazon or Ebay, check out partycity.com or scoot over to Walmart’s site to order custom banners, posters, balloons and table clothes that have the big purple Dino on it. Within an hour, you can be done. Some of these products come from China (the Dinosaur is popular over there), some come from personal collections, and some are sold exclusively online for those searching for the hard-to-find supplies. Some of the sites you may choose to order from because you know of their business (everyone knows Walmart) and are familiar with them. But what if you have never heard of them or have no idea who they are? Would you still choose to do business with them? It’s hard to determine how genuine a business is when you are simply looking at their web site. When you are looking for a paint booth, you are looking at a large investment… not just some balloons or party décor. How can you decide if the company you’re looking at online is a legitimate business that will provide you a quality booth?

Here are some signs that you may want to pay attention to when shopping online.

Remember that anyone can get a web site and pay to show up on Google. Here are some results for “Paint booth” on Google.

A nice web site may be a good sign, but what is contained within that web site is even more important. Don’t be swayed with how “nice” a site is… but for the information they provide about themselves. When you search for a product on Google, remember that anyone can pay to show up in the ads … the one’s who show up in the organic results are the ones that are there because of the content they provide as well as the record they have proven to Google.

THERE IS NO PHYSICAL ADDRESS LISTED

This is a big giveaway that it is a company you may not want to do business with. When ordering anything online, it’s important to find out that it is a legitimate business before you give them payment information. If the company does not freely provide their location (actual address), business history and how their booths are made (and where they are made)…. I would go with a more established organization. Get a physical address and Google Image the map of it. A PO Box is not a physical address. FYI- When you Google our address, this is what you see, our office and plant facilities…. with an actual brick-and-mortar location and cars in the parking lot.

A companies web site should include: where their booths are manufactured, where their booths are shipped from, who is makes the booths, how long the business has been making booths, how many employees they have, etc.

Some competitors list several states that they have “locations” in… but in reality they are a distributor of a company that have storage warehouses in those locations. Some of these companies do not have any kind of brick-and-mortar location, although they present themselves to.

If you are shopping on a site like eBay or Amazon, make certain you know the company you are purchasing it from.

NO PRESENCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Can you find their basic web site but nothing else? No Facebook page or YouTube account. No blogs to read. Remember that anyone can set up a basic web site, that doesn’t mean they are a legitimate business. Find a company that constantly posts blogs with useful information, post photos of client’s products and testimonials. Companies should be utilizing as many avenues as possible to tell you about their company and products. If not, perhaps you should ask, “why?”

FEEDBACK + REVIEWS

Every company has their share of upset customers, but if all you find online are customers that are complaining about their experience with a company…. It should be a red flag. You should be able to see both positive and some negative comments when you look at their reviews or scan their social pages.

PHOTOS OF ACTUAL PRODUCTS

We all want to see what the finished product looks like. Look for customer photos on their site or on their Facebook page. Drawings are the industry norm, but their social pages and blogs should provide images of what their booths look like after installation.

TYPOS AND ERRORS ON SITE

Are there misspelled words or errors in the formatting? For example, instead of “14’W x 10’H x 24’D” does it read “14’0?wid? x 10’0?hi?gh x 24’0?deep”?

These are signs that the business is:

a)     Copying and pasting the information from somewhere else.
b)    Doesn’t take the time to really proof their site for accuracy. Make sure you do business with a company that pays attention to the details.
c)     English isn’t their first language, so perhaps they are located elsewhere.

WHO THEY ARE

You should know whom you’re doing business with. Can you easily find a name, or photo, of someone at the company, or the CEO? Are there photos of the employees posted on their Facebook? Are there email addresses or direct phone numbers? Is there an “About Us” portion of their site that tells you their mission and why they are passionate about what they do? All of these little details add up to give you the information you need to make an informed decision on whom you are doing business with.

We thank you for your trust and your business!

We Don’t Need No stinking Exhaust Filters

Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a movie released in 1948 with Humphrey Bogart. This movie is not rated as one of the best or most viewed, but it gave us a one liner that is often repeated. In the movie Bogart and his group, along with several other groups of ne’er-do-wells, are looking for a lost treasure of gold. One group tries to fool Bogart and his gang by acting as Mexican Federales (or mounted police). “If you are Federales”, asks Bogart, “where are your badges?” The bandit leader replies, “Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!” Great line, but what does it have to do with spray booths? I feel like that is what customers say about exhaust filters for their booth. “Filters? We don’t need no exhaust filters.”

One of the main purposes of a spray booth is to capture overspray. You do not want it to exhaust on top of your building. Your co-workers do not want it deposited onto their vehicles in the parking lot. You neighbors do not want it on their property. The government does not look favorably on the overspray getting to the atmosphere, plants, soil or water. Continue reading We Don’t Need No stinking Exhaust Filters

MANIFOLDING SPRAY BOOTH DUCTWORK AND IMPROPER AIRFLOW

In this photo, an installer has chosen to manifold three spray booth exhaust duct runs. (A manifold is a pipe or chamber branching into several openings.)

This layout probably looked great on paper and reduced the number of roof penetrations from three to just one.

Reality is such as nasty teacher. The static pressure (resistance to the flow of air) was greater in the top portion of the ductwork than in the spray booths. The ductwork downstream from the manifold point (above the joints) should be much larger than what is in the photo. The air ventilated out of one booth actually flows into its neighbor.

Our booths are designed to meet specific airflow needs and we design them with ductwork. The spray booths in the photo were designed to have individual exhaust ductwork runs; they were not installed according to the design or instructions provided by Standard Tools.

Manifolding of exhaust ductwork is allowed by NFPA-33 only if devices exist in the ductwork that detect improper airflow. The static pressure within the spray booth will change as the overspray builds up in the exhaust filters and as the obstruction within the booth changes (based on size and shape of parts in the spray booth). This can be very technical and overly-complex. The simple rule, and what Standard Tools recommends, is no manifolding of exhaust ductwork. Keeping ductwork simple is the least expensive and best performing strategy in the long run. We suggest that you install your booth, and your ductwork, according to our recommendations to ensure proper airflow within your booth.

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Tag: Standard Tools

Productivity Challenges In 2020

Productivity Challenges In 2020

Top 5 tips for buying a booth in 2020:

Standard Tools and Equipment Celebrates 20 Years.

NEW! Heated Full Downdraft Booth.

Putting a Face with the Voice: The Sales and Customer Service Team

Please Don’t Crate My Paint Booth.

When you order a powder-coated paint booth, we actually wrap each individual panel to protect it’s finish from scrapes and scratches.

Here are some photos of a booth that is not crated and the damage it causes. This is why it’s not optional, and shouldn’t be optional from any manufacturer.

Powder Coating Process on Your Spray Booth: in Photos

Powder coating offers brilliant white booths!

We Don’t Need No stinking Exhaust Filters

MANIFOLDING SPRAY BOOTH DUCTWORK AND IMPROPER AIRFLOW