In one way or another, most companies work in what we’ve come to call a “deadline driven environment” — a term that’s self-explanatory. Practically everything a company sells, as well as every process that contributes to the sales process, has a strict timeline attached.
When timelines aren’t kept, internal problems are often to blame, but missed deadlines can also result from a business-to-business relationship, where one partner always seems to be a step behind.
Is Your Chemical Company Making You Miss Deadlines?
The scenario above can happen in various capacities. Here, we’re concerned with how using the wrong chemical company can make you miss deadlines — a phenomenon you simply can’t afford due to the customer attrition it can cause.
Consequently, the focus for solvent users should be to avoid these companies instead of cutting them loose once their shoddy business practices come to light. Below are four characteristics of a chemical company that have a good chance of making you miss important deadlines.
- Doesn’t Formulate Custom Solvents
If your chemical company doesn’t formulate custom solvents, and you end up needing a custom formulation, you’ll need to find a different supplier — a process that requires time, effort, and careful decision making that could easily make you miss deadlines that depend on solvent use.
- Supplies Custom Solvents on a One-off Basis
If you need a custom solvent for an ongoing cleaning application, chances are that you need the solvent on an ongoing basis instead of a one-off basis, which would require you to reorder the solvent each time you need a new batch. A chemical company that stores your solvent information, and can supply custom solvents on a scheduled basis is a better option.
- Uses Shipping Options That Slow Delivery
Direct shipping provides the fastest delivery, but some chemical companies use less than load (LTL) shipping to help cut costs for delivering small to medium size orders. In LTL shipping, multiple shipments are placed in a single freight container and dropped off to multiple customers along the shipping route. LTL shipping involves lots of stops and starts, which slows down the delivery of your solvent.
- Not Enough Production to Serve Customer Base
Another drawback that some chemical companies have is simply not producing enough supply to meet demand. If your current supplier is frequently backlogged with orders for the solvent you need, this alone is enough to choose a different supplier.
Looking for a New Chemical Company?
If your current chemical company sabotages your operations by making you miss deadlines, it’s time to find a new one. Ecolink would love the opportunity to show you how we can improve the situation once and for all.
We offer stock solvents that ship the same day, custom solvents that ship in a few days, and provide the option of having your solvents delivered on a scheduled basis through direct shipping — all for an affordable price that helps prevent your solvent operations from using too much of the operating budget.
To learn more about our solvent options and solvent delivery options, please call us today at (800) 563-1305, our use our contact form, to schedule a free review of your requirements. We look forward to helping you consistently complete your solvent-based operations on schedule.
Electronic Solvent Cleaner: Finding Environmentally Safe Alternatives
/in Ecolink News/by Industrial DegreasersA dependable cleaner is essential in the electronics industry to remove contaminants such as flux, adhesive residues, solder, and general debris left behind from the manufacturing process. Electronic solvent cleaners are used to increase the lifetime of the product by boosting surface resistance as well as other properties. As new products consistently decrease in size, manufacturers must take all necessary steps to deliver high performance and reliability.
An exceptional electronic solvent cleaner ensures adequate adhesion for coatings in addition to insulation resistance. Cleaning is necessary throughout the manufacturing process to ensure each electronic component is high quality. For example, removal is often required prior to soldering to eliminate contaminants from previous production phases. Awareness has drastically increased regarding how electronic solvent cleaners affect the environment thus causing several companies in this industry to seek safer, environmentally friendly options.
What Makes an Electronic Solvent Cleaner Safer for the Environment?
Traditional electronic solvent cleaners contain extensive Volatile Organic Compounds or VOC’s, which contribute to ozone depletion and create health concerns for handlers or anyone working around the chemicals. Safer alternatives are being developed to deliver the equivalent results with a lower risk. A number of qualities make a chemical safer for the environment including:
Trichloroethane or TCA was the most common solvent choice for electronic cleaning and maintenance tasks; however, it was banned due to its negative impact on the environment. Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) was another popular chemical solvent that many companies are seeking to replace because it is harmful to the environment. Finding an exact replacement is not easily done for these chemicals and requires a little work. Many providers have developed solutions with safer qualities that are suitable as an alternative.
A Few Key Considerations
Many replacement options offer solutions containing minimal to no VOC’s. This ensures minimal harm as substances enter the atmosphere through evaporation or manufacturing processes. Additionally non-flammable, rapid drying solutions offer a reduced risk of evaporation. The faster the substance dries, the less time it has to evaporate. Non-flammable electronic solvent cleaners have either no flash point or a flash point higher than 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit).
Electronic solvent cleaners with a low flash point are considered flammable and dangerous for the environment. This risk increases when the flash point is lower because it vaporizes at a lower temperature. Electronic solvent cleaners with no flash point simply do not vaporize at any temperature. The boiling point specifically determines the temperature at which the liquid will turn to gas. Those with a low boiling point are considered to be a fire hazard because they produce extensive amounts of vapor at low temperatures.
Electronic solvent cleaners with higher vapor pressures are more volatile and considered to be dangerous. Other factors to evaluate when selecting environmentally friendly electronic solvent cleaners are: vapor density, surface tension, hazardous air pollutants (HAP’s), and threshold limit values. At Ecolink, we offer a number of environmentally friendly, effective options to aid in cleaning. We can also formulate a safe to handle, non-ozone depleting solution to meet your unique needs. Contact us today to learn more!
Flux Removal Cleaners – Custom Solutions
/in Flux Removal/by Industrial DegreasersWhen circuit boards are assembled, the parts comprising the circuit board are soldered to minimize and eliminate the potential for damage. In order for the solder to make a perfect connection to the parts and to the board, a substance called flux is mixed into the solder, which removes oxidation and cleans up the surfaces of the different parts so the solder will properly adhere. After the board is assembled, some flux will still remain. A flux remover dissolves the flux and washes it away.
Flux Removal
Removing flux is considered a two step process. The first step is dissolving the flux, and the second step is rinsing the dissolved flux off the circuit board. The rinsing step is critical because after dissolving the flux, it may seem as though the solids in the flux have disappeared. However, once the flux remover has evaporated, the solids will redeposit on the board as white residue. It must be ensured that the dissolved flux solids are removed from the board before the flux remover evaporates and the solids redeposit. Depending on the reason you are using flux and on what type of surface the flux is being applied, certain industrial companies, such as Ecolink, offer custom solutions for the removal of flux. Ecolink provides flux removal cleaners of different varieties, depending on the custom needs that will best fit your solution.
Looking for Flux Removal Cleaners?
Flux removal cleaners are an important component to ensuring no damaging flux particles or residue is left on a circuit board that could later cause devastating problems to IT hardware or any electrical part or circuit board. Because it is quite a meticulous process to remove flux, please consult with Ecolink to ensure you are receiving the optimum custom solution that pertains to your exact need. We will be happy to evaluate your current cleaning process to make sure you are using the most suitable flux removal cleaner that best fits your custom solution needs. Contact us today!
Degreasing Methods: What is Vapor Pressure Cleaning?
/in Vapor Degreasing/by Industrial DegreasersDegreasing is one of the most common industrial cleaning operations. From engine parts to handheld tools, practically every company and organization that uses equipment that accumulates grease must perform degreasing to keep the equipment in ideal condition for its application. One way that this can be done is vapor pressure cleaning — a process in which pressurized vapor from a cleaning agent powers away tough accumulations of grease.
How Vapor Degreasing Works
Unlike degreasing operations that are performed in open air with the use of aerosols, spray liquids, and wipes, vapor degreasing is performed inside a machine that’s specially designed to vaporize a solvent and pressurize the vapor to make it remove grease from parts that are arranged inside the machine. Below is the basic, eight-part process in which vapor pressure cleaning is used to remove heavy grease from parts and leave them looking practically new.
In some cases, the vapor degreasing process also entails rinsing workpieces in a separate chamber inside the machine to ensure no solvent residue remains, spraying workpieces with a solvent before they enter the machine to speed up the cleaning process, and/or using vacuum degreasers when the machine employs a vacuum to vacuum degreasing system.
Benefits of Vapor Degreasing
Regardless of what comprises the vapor pressure cleaning process, performing it properly can offer several important benefits that help the user execute an efficient cleaning operation, ensure that parts are entirely clean, and curb expenditures for industrial degreasing solvent.
Vapor pressure cleaning is a highly effective method for degreasing precision parts and tools, but two things are always necessary for maximum effectiveness: a parts cleaning machine that facilitates vapor degreasing and using the right type of degreaser for the cleaning process. If you need advice on either requirement, the solvent specialists at Ecolink can help.
Looking for Degreasing Solvents?
Vapor degreasing is a simple process that relies on complex machinery and carefully formulated cleaning agents. Because purchasing the vapor pressure cleaning machine and buying solvent is where most of the cost comes in, it is economically imperative to choose the right equipment and cleaner from the start. Using our expertise in parts washing and cleaning solvents, we can help you do this contact us today. We look forward to helping you realize the benefits of vapor degreasing!
Industrial Strength Parts Washer Solvents
/in Parts Washer/by Industrial DegreasersIndustrial businesses are usually associated with tough, demanding, and rigorous manual labor. The workforce performing manual labor will go through intense training courses on safety and how to correctly operate machinery before being placed on the job. Numerous instances exist that could lead to an accident, whether it be minor or even fatal. Businesses that operate in such a fashion will most likely stress the importance of industrial safety, working hard to keep the workplace accident free. There are several different ways of keeping the workplace accident free, we discuss a few below.
Industrial safety tips, helpful hints, and bright ideas:
To learn more about industrial safety and the options you have for keeping the workplace accident free while dealing with chemical compound agents, call Ecolink. Ecolink professionals will be happy to explain other ways to keeping the workplace accident free, while pointing you in the right direction to equipping your company with better alternatives for industrial safety.
How the Wrong Chemical Company Can Make You Miss Deadlines
/in Chemical Management Company/by Industrial DegreasersIn one way or another, most companies work in what we’ve come to call a “deadline driven environment” — a term that’s self-explanatory. Practically everything a company sells, as well as every process that contributes to the sales process, has a strict timeline attached.
When timelines aren’t kept, internal problems are often to blame, but missed deadlines can also result from a business-to-business relationship, where one partner always seems to be a step behind.
Is Your Chemical Company Making You Miss Deadlines?
The scenario above can happen in various capacities. Here, we’re concerned with how using the wrong chemical company can make you miss deadlines — a phenomenon you simply can’t afford due to the customer attrition it can cause.
Consequently, the focus for solvent users should be to avoid these companies instead of cutting them loose once their shoddy business practices come to light. Below are four characteristics of a chemical company that have a good chance of making you miss important deadlines.
If your chemical company doesn’t formulate custom solvents, and you end up needing a custom formulation, you’ll need to find a different supplier — a process that requires time, effort, and careful decision making that could easily make you miss deadlines that depend on solvent use.
If you need a custom solvent for an ongoing cleaning application, chances are that you need the solvent on an ongoing basis instead of a one-off basis, which would require you to reorder the solvent each time you need a new batch. A chemical company that stores your solvent information, and can supply custom solvents on a scheduled basis is a better option.
Direct shipping provides the fastest delivery, but some chemical companies use less than load (LTL) shipping to help cut costs for delivering small to medium size orders. In LTL shipping, multiple shipments are placed in a single freight container and dropped off to multiple customers along the shipping route. LTL shipping involves lots of stops and starts, which slows down the delivery of your solvent.
Another drawback that some chemical companies have is simply not producing enough supply to meet demand. If your current supplier is frequently backlogged with orders for the solvent you need, this alone is enough to choose a different supplier.
Looking for a New Chemical Company?
If your current chemical company sabotages your operations by making you miss deadlines, it’s time to find a new one. Ecolink would love the opportunity to show you how we can improve the situation once and for all.
We offer stock solvents that ship the same day, custom solvents that ship in a few days, and provide the option of having your solvents delivered on a scheduled basis through direct shipping — all for an affordable price that helps prevent your solvent operations from using too much of the operating budget.
To learn more about our solvent options and solvent delivery options, please call us today at (800) 563-1305, our use our contact form, to schedule a free review of your requirements. We look forward to helping you consistently complete your solvent-based operations on schedule.