It's a known fact that many facilities' sealing costs are higher than they need to be due to the plethora of materials and products used. One way to reduce costs is through standardizing the gasket material used in a facility. By simplifying the processes related to the procurement, maintenance, and inventorying of gaskets and seals, this can aid in the reduction of overall cost.
Saving the Sealing Spend
Mechanical seals, gaskets, O-rings, and packing can constitute a significant portion of a facility’s spend on sealing products. With respect to gaskets, the proliferation of different materials, different suppliers, and the applications they serve has led to complexity in the gasket selection and procurement process. So what do these costs involve? Gasket testing, evaluation and selection, procurement, inventory carrying and management, and installation are part of the overhead.
It is important to note that gasket standardization reduces the total lifetime cost for sealing a joint, and not just the initial acquisition cost. It's with this consideration on reducing the total lifetime cost across a wide variety of material types that produces the significant annual savings achievable through gasket standardization.
Reduce Complexity by Standardizing Gasket Materials
Reducing sealing costs requires reducing complexity by standardizing on a small set of gasket materials. The focus of gasket standardization should not be to reduce the amount of materials used, but rather should concentrate on identifying and adopting the smallest possible set of materials that will cover the majority of a facility’s sealing needs. While there is no single material that will likely meet all of a facility’s sealing needs, the variety of materials and suppliers used can often be reduced significantly to help with this.
An area where many facilities can most readily pursue gasket standardization is with the piping network used to transfer fluids and gases throughout a system. The piping network used throughout a facility's production system often comprises the majority of that facility’s gasket needs. It is usually easier to standardize the gasket materials used for piping than to standardize the materials used for process equipment. This is because pipe flanges are much more standardized in size than equipment flanges, and equipment applications themselves are much more variable and less uniform than piping networks and systems.
How to Apply Gasket Standardization
To begin applying gasket standardization to a piping network, first conduct a review of the types of piping present in your facility. Determine the types of piping present in the network and the number of flanges present (i.e., steel piping, fibreglass reinforced, etc.).
Then, for each type of piping, identify the gasket materials currently being utilized. From there, identify opportunities for reducing the number of materials that are used. The key is to select the preferred type of material for each type of piping within the network and to seek opportunities where common materials may be used across different types. This may require a consideration of critical process variables, such as pressures, temperatures, and operating conditions, which can be completed via suitable cut-off points.
The last step would be to find an expert with industry knowledge of all sorts of materials and applications. Gallagher Fluid Seals has been working with customers in nearly every industry for more than 60 years and can help select the right gasket standardization process and materials for you.
Parts of this artcle were gleaned from Canada Rubber Group's website.
For more information regarding the standardization of sealing materials, or for a roadmap to achieve it, contact Gallagher Fluid Seals today.
