5 Eureka Moments That Deserve To Be Shared

February 20, 2017

When I first heard the name ‘dehum’ and terminology like ‘dehumidification’, ‘humidity control’ and ‘accelerated drying processes’, my enthusiasm was perhaps slightly…forced.

A few weeks in, to head the marketing for dehum, I have learnt the following:

• Never judge a book by its cover (or name).
• The passion, drive and expertise of the company owners and employees is impressive to say the least…they certainly know their stuff.
• The knowledge and core essence of the business is versatile enough to be applied to virtually any industry.
• The production process improvements that dehum is responsible for are mind blowing!

Some of the many ‘eureka’ moments that dehum has enjoyed are explained below (I have tried to keep the technical speak to a minimum):

• Aviation – dehum has pioneered the replacement of the labour intensive, costly and environmentally damaging technique of coating aircraft parts for protection during transportation. The Company has developed a new transportation system, which allows controlled and conditioned environments on a moving vehicle measuring over 30m long. Both temperature and humidity are controlled to specific set points, whilst overcoming the issues with availability of a power supply on a moving vehicle. The system combines the latest controls function developed in house. This includes data logging, Ethernet connections, wireless connection and even the use of an App to track the conditions throughout the transportation cycle, enabling complete traceability for the life of the components.

• Battery Manufacturing – With the demand for lithium batteries growing all the time, manufacturing these little fellows in bulk has proven to be somewhat problematic. This is due to the very precise air conditions that are required, equal to less than 1%RH. This has inspired the creation of ‘dry rooms’ and the development of specialist equipment by dehum, ensuring that the extremely dry air needed during the manufacturing process of lithium batteries is achieved and maintained.

• Cold Storage – Chilled food distribution centres and commercial cold stores present their own unique issues to deal with. The risk of falling ice, frost shock on products, door mechanism failures – to name but a few – are high. This obviously has a detrimental impact on operating costs, increases Health & Safety risks, heightens the probability of downtime and so forth. dehum has been instrumental in developing sophisticated dehumidification processes to tackle these issues. The results have been phenomenal. The equipment that dehum installs will enable the varied temperatures required across such a facility to be maintained at all times, whilst totally eliminating the risk of an indoor snow and ice.

• Food & Drink – It’s difficult to know where to begin, such is the extent of process improvements that dehum has achieved within these industries. From the introduction of bespoke accelerated drying processes within chocolate manufacturing to specific humidity control techniques required when sugar-coating sweets to prevent them from sticking together. dehum is working with some of the biggest brands across these industries and has created, manufactured and installed a broad range of cutting-edge technologies and equipment, including specialised accelerated drying ovens. This means the perfect sweet treat is produced every time in record time!

• Foam Production – Admittedly, it is difficult to get over excited about foam production used in carpet underlay but please read on. The traditional process of drying manufactured foam used to take as long as 5 days, creating a production bottleneck. Not particularly cost-effective and a complete waste of valuable warehousing space. Working closely with the client, dehum has been able to introduce an innovative way to dry the foam. This involves a complete handling system, taking the ‘wet’ product; drying it and allowing it to be further processed without any delay. In fact, the drying time has been reduced from 5 days to 1.5minutes, utilising superheated dry air. Needless to say, the bottleneck has disappeared…excited now?

It’s amazing to think that dehum is behind so many innovative techniques and process improvements, all of which have had such a positive impact on organisations of all sizes and across all industries. Improving productivity, reducing costs, bettering Health & Safety standards and ultimately raising employee morale by improving working conditions.

If you have a process issue that you would like help with or would simply like to find out more about dehum, please visit our website www.dehum.com or call 01926 882624.