Industry awaits assembly guidelines
Proposed hose assembly instructions should improve customer service and safety
By Ken Brack -- Industrial Distribution, 12/1/1999
A draft of the long-awaited hose assembly guidelines will soon be available for NAHAD members' review and comments.Assembly guidelines for composite, hydraulic, industrial, Teflon and metal hose should help improve customer service and avoid potential assembly failures, industry leaders say. Once the guidelines are adopted by members of the National Assn. of Hose and Accessories Distributors, end users will be able to specify the safest assemblies, fittings and hoses when purchasing.
NAHAD members can read segments of the proposed guidelines at the association's Web site, www.nahad.org., but it is unknown exactly when the full draft will be available. At press time, officials were in the final stages of combining guidelines for each hose group into a single document and had not decided when to make it available online to the public. NAHAD officials hope to present the standards to members either before or during the group's annual convention in Monterey, Calif., April 8-12.
"The intention is that the draft will be made available for public view online, and we'll encourage industry members to view it," says Joseph Thompson, NAHAD executive vice president. "The idea is to have a series of guidelines available to end users."
NAHAD leaders formed a group to address leakage and liability concerns five years ago. Standards for metal hose assemblies were completed in 1996, some of which have been modified slightly for the combined draft.
"I think what this will do is be a place where a distributor can go to get some good information about the attachment methods that are typically used with [certain] hose types, and the fitting that will be used, and a set of instructions to show him how to properly put together hoses, fittings and attachments," says Tim Saupe, a worldwide technology manager of hose products for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Saupe was one of several manufacturers' engineers who helped compile the standards along with distributors.
"I think in the past [a distributor] had to do a lot more searching to put his hands on it," he says.
Industry leaders like James Brown, president of Uland Supply Co., Inc., hope that publishing guidelines will not be an end unto itself. Brown and others suggest the initiative will lead to establishing a training facility to certify distributor personnel in assembly techniques.
Another idea discussed is to set up an industry-funded, independent testing agency to verify the integrity of hose, clampings, hose ends and test components in various combinations. However, officials believe forming an independent body would be too expensive and the number of combinations too great to make it practical, says Thompson.
Early in November, distributors and engineers continued to combine guidelines into one document. One feature of the proposed manual is a selections chart to help end users and distributors pick the right hoses, couplings and attachments. Data sheets for each of the three individual components will be included as well.
Jeff Berger, a senior applications engineer at Dayco Products Co., and a member of the assembly standards unification subcommittee, says that in deciding which combinations of hoses, couplings and attachments to specify, the unification committee relied on what's generally used in the market, or what he calls an "80-to-90 percent [usage] rule."
"We tried to create assembly procedures for distributors and end users who don't have much knowledge in things that are critical to assembly," says Berger. "This is a first attempt anybody has ever made to go after assemblies and try to give some guidance as to what's good and what's not."
He says that even with so many manufacturers represented as standards were being developed, no turf battles erupted. "The reason is I think everyone in the industrial industry recognizes it needed to be done," he says.
There are no other articles related to this article.Talkback
Related Content
Related Content
Sponsored Links
View All Blogs
