Technical people at Tubosider were quite familiar with the firm John Merriman & Sons (JMS), a well renowned electrical engineering, panel-building and contracting company situated in Birkenhead, Merseyside, U.K., and had made use of that firm’s services before, so it became natural for our pipemaker’s engineers to discuss the matter with JMS’ people when a suitable opportunity presented itself.
It did not take long for JMS’ engineers to discover that the potential for improvements was even greater than what first met the eye, in terms of ease, precision and efficiency of operation, thanks to the capabilities of modern computerized controls and the accuracy of today’s variable speed drives. So, Tubosider commissioned JMS to do the upgrade.
"Due to the complexity of Tubosider’s rolling process, this job was very challenging technically and therefore very interesting and rewarding to us technophiles at JMS to be involved in" said Mike Boston, Manager at JMS.
True, we were as certain as anyone can reasonably be before the event that we would succeed, but that didn’t stop us from feeling weak-kneed when Tubosider and we did our first trial runs. Imagine our relief when we found out early that everything worked – almost – as it should, that only a few additional tweaks were required to make it perfect!
And imagine our satisfaction when those tweaks worked as we thought they would!
But of course, the only confirmation of success that counts is your customer’s word for it!