Do it yourself, if you can!

Economic crises usually destroy millions of jobs, scrap thousands of companies and lead to bankruptcy many others.

To cut costs, most companies commit a fatal error, which is to fire first their oldest, most experienced and expensive employees, those who generally guarantee the delivery of good products and services on time and on budget, ensuring a successful project.

The side effects of dismantling companies will be felt for a long time, especially when a new recovery cycle begins.

As an example, I recently had to buy a dozen small centrifugal fans with extreme urgency imposed by the customer (today everything is urgent, no strategy, no planning, no management, only urgency!!!) and I turned to traditional manufacturers.

The delivery time offered by all manufacturers were ridiculously long and did not meet my needs.

The way to solve my problem was to adopt the motto "Do it yourself"!

I started from level zero, to quickly design and develop a prototype of such fans, to run the tests and then proceed with the the production of the new series of fans.

Oh! Damn it! No time for Microstation, AutoCAD or any other design software. Only the design tools used in the past were available to execute the drawings.

Obeying the limitations of the dimensions imposed by the project and applying the 8-point Archimedean Spiral, I developed the volute of what would later be a centrifugal fan.

"Like the Wizard of Pencil, Formula 1 designer Mr Adrian Newey"

"First volute shape for the centrifugal fan prototype"

With the drawings under arm (made by hand on a portable drawing board), I remembered that I could manufacture the stainless steel fan casings in a small company / workshop, where I had manufactured many small air conditioning equipments for the nautical industry 25 years ago ! I called my old friend, who agreed to do the work.

"Testing the fan prototype"

We prepared a prototype, testing some available electric motors, with different electrical power and speed to evaluate performance before manufacturing the fan series.

"Some fans ready for final assembly"

To manufacture such parts, I counted on the support of an experienced metal craftsman and an old welder before the final assembly of the fansa / ventilation boxes in another location.

"Job done" !!!

Story Summary: If you have short deadline to meet, better hire experienced people to get the job done!

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Future Application: Best of all, I'm going to use these fans in the new individual self-contained cabin units I'm going to start manufacturing for yachts and offshore support vessels!