LETTER
FROM THE EDITOR
We can officially
declare that summer has arrived! Some of us have
already taken vacation, some of us are in the
middle of it, and some of us, like me, still have…..
4 weeks to go. At least I had my annual bike trip
in June (for those of you who know that I am a
motorcycle enthusiast). Be on the lookout in the
near future for an article about that recent bike
ride. As always, we try to keep a good mix of
fun and business in THE LEADER.COM. This is what
we have for our new and regular readers this month:
Check out our new casters, written by Luc
As promised, Nancy tells us about her racing weekend
at the Montreal F1 circuit (I'm glad that we're
finally done with this event for the next 11 months……
She starts being a "pain" 4 weeks prior
to this F1 race!)
Read about André "the giant",
by Luc
Gilles, our sales rep. in Quebec City, tells us
about one of his distributors
Friendship, how important ! Dominic tells us about
it
And finally, I have the business type of article
this month, again. Read about "starting efforts"
Happy
reading !
Signed,
Frederic Lagace
Editor |
|
| Colleague
of the month
Since
our very first edition of the leader.com, we’ve
introduced you to 7 of our colleagues. As you
can see, we have a pretty stable team of employees,
and the addition of new faces comes as a result
of our growing business, and thankfully not because
of employee turnover.
This month, we introduce
you to Andre, who in the next few months will
be marking his 4th year at Bleutec. Along with
Frank, Andre is a key element to our team as he
sees to please our customers. From this brief
description, you may have guessed that Andre works
in the shipping department and prepares customer
orders.
Behind his “grouchy”
exterior, we occasionally do get a smile out of
him! Andre is probably the one who has the most
nicknames at Bleutec, and he usually laughs about
it. Conscientious in his work, Andre, along with
the entire Bleutec team, pursues to satisfy all
of our customers.
Luc Turcotte
|
|
Friendship!
A sentiment that
takes alot of place in my life, and yet
only a few lines to write to you about it…
Affection is what we can feel towards someone,
but the great thing about friendship is
that it’s a two way street. A friend,
a true friend, is someone that we like to
share time with, that we listen to, and
who will take the time to listen to us.
A small gesture,
a special attention, what we offer or
receive from a friend can make a difference
in one’s day. True friends, whether
they are colleagues, neighbors, from our
childhood or from school, provide us with
the feeling of never being alone, and
give us the feeling of being important
to someone.
Frienship is such
an important element in life that there
are thousands of proverbs about it :
I value the friend who for me finds time
on his calendar, but I cherish the friend
who for me does not consult his calendar.
Robert Brault
It is not so much
our friends' help that helps us, as the
confidence of their help. Epicurus
Frienship
is essential, and we have to take the
time to think of our true friends and
to tell them how important they are to
us.
Dominique
Rouleau
|
|
|
| The
Grand Prix!
At the races….
Sunday, June 15, 2003
5:30 a.m. Alarm clock rings
6:45 a.m. Get into the car
and drive to the Circuit
Gilles Villeneuve
7:15 a.m. Phew!! There are
parking spaces still
available!
7:45 a.m. Get comfortable in
my seat, have a coffee, and wait for the race….
Race
morning, 7:45a.m.
Well, that’s how
my Sunday started. Actually, that was pretty
much my schedule for the 3 days of the Grand
Prix weekend.
Another year, and another
exciting race. It’s been a long time since
we’ve seen the first 4 cars finish within
5 seconds! Wow! Michael Schumacher seemed pretty
happy with his win. During his victory lap,
he drove very slowly in front of the hairpin’s
grandstands and acknowledged the fans.
As for our hometown boy
Jacques, well… I think that there’s
been enough written and said about him in the
local media that I’ll keep this short
and conclude by writing that there’s still
8 races left in the season!
My
view of the track.
The weather over the weekend
wasn’t great with heavy rain on Friday,
drizzle on Saturday, and (thankfully) sun on
Sunday. I didn’t mind because we got to
see the cars lap in different weather conditions,
and I didn’t get sunburned!
The hairpin curve, located
at the Eastern tip of the circuit, is where
I have my seats. It’s great because you
get to see the cars for a reasonable amount
of time and there’s always lots of action.
This year, I got a close up and wave from Heinz
Harald Frentzen and Ralph Firman as their cars
“died” in the hairpin, and they
had to walk beside my grandstand on their way
back to the pits. Cool!
Another race weekend gone
by. Now I can start the countdown to the Cart
race in August and get my Patrick Carpentier
T-shirt ready!!
Have a super month
of July!
Nancy
Allen |
| |
|
HAPPY SUMMER VACATION!!!
|
DON'T FORGET
TO WRITE US...
|
|
STARTING
EFFORT
You may
recall from our last edition that I gave you
the first part of a two-part article on ergonomics
and starting efforts. As promised, here’s
all you need to know about starting efforts.
What do I mean by starting
effort? Basically, it defines the amount of
force (push or pull) needed to start moving
a load on casters.
Guitel has two methods
to determine this force:
The first method is used
for "on-site" verification.  This
is when a potential customer wants to precisely
compare the starting efforts of rolling equipments
at their location. A dynamometer is used to
push a caster- equipped cart. This measuring
equipment will precisely indicate the force
required to get the cart to move and to keep
it moving. Once the cart begins to move, they
read the measurements given by the dynamometer
in lbs. or kgs and other force measuring units,
like Newtons.
The second
way to determine these starting efforts is with
a special device manufactured by Guitel (see
picture). I would sound like a nerdy mathematician
if I were to describe exactly how this device
works. Why don't you call me if you want the
details!! Basically, the measurements given
by this device are very precise, and much easier
and faster for Guitel to read. This "machine"
is installed in Guitel's R&D department
so that they can quickly compare results for
different types of wheels and loads. 
With this
device, Guitel has come up with the following
data for their products, as well as for other
types of wheels available on the market.
TYPES
OF WHEELS |
STARTING
EFFORTS IN
% OF TOTAL LOAD |
PHENOLIC |
1% |
BLUE RESILEXtm RUBBER |
2.3% |
GREEN RESILEXtm RUBBER |
1.3% |
| BLACK RESILEXtm RUBBER |
2.1% |
NYLON (PA.) and most
plastic wheels |
1% |
NORMEUROPtm RUBBER |
4% |
| POLYURETHANE |
3% |
SANDWICHtm WHEEL |
1.5% |
| HARD RUBBER |
|
(what I call hockey
pucks, plain bearing) |
5% and more |
The information in the
above chart was measured with 5" diameter
wheels with roller bearing hubs. To put this
data into perspective and as an example: if
you have a 500 lb. Cart on four 5" Blue
Resilex casters with roller bearing hubs, the
starting effort will be: 500 X 2.3%
= 11.5 lb. This means that
you will need to apply a force of 11.5 lb. to
get this cart to start moving.
There are many more intricacies
about starting efforts. With this article, I
only wanted to give you an overview of the possibilities.
I did not mention anything about maneuverability
and what happens when the casters need to swivel
right at the starting point. The data collected
by Guitel only shows the efforts required when
all the casters under the same cart are in the
"pushing direction". The types of
bearing, tread qualities and wheel sizes will
effect the starting efforts dramatically.
You may want to see how
your carts perform in terms of starting effort.
Who knows, this could show that your employees
are spending way too much energy to move loads
in their working environment. You could then
compare your data with ours and find out how
much effort, time and money we could make you
save. Here's a tip: if you want to quickly measure
the efforts required to move your carts, you
can use a standard fish scale. Let me know how
it goes!
Frederic
Lagace
|
|
| Latest
product news
This past year, we’ve
introduced the new Economax series. The addition
of this product line has created a demand for
other types of imported casters. As it is almost
impossible to print new catalogues on a monthly
basis, we’ll make use of the leader.com
to show you our new wheels and casters.
In this edition, we want
to show you 2 scaffold casters : an 8 inch for
large scaffolds, and a 4 inch for smaller scaffolds.
Both these casters are entirely interchangeable
with all scaffolds in today’s market. Furthermore,
we have very competitive prices on both sizes,
and we will receive 6 inch scaffold casters by
the end of September.
Product #570200 :
8 inch stem caster
Moldon rubber wheel *
Roller bearing
Swivel and wheel brake
1 3/8 x 3 5/8 inch stem
*This caster is also
available with other wheel types
Product #800100B : 4 inch stem
caster
Resiprene wheel
Plain (delrin) bearing
Swivel with side (butterfly) brake
7/16 x 1 ¼ inch stem with “C”
ring
Luc
Turcotte
|
|
LEADER OF AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
For reasons of lower
staff availability during this vacation period, we will
be sending one publication of the LEADER.COM for the months
of August and September.
|
