Plant Tours

Maximize the value of your conference experience by attending one of the plant tours on Thursday, October 23! Plant tours and workshops on Thursday run simultaneously. Plant Tours are $85.00 per person and include breakfast, lunch, and transportation.  Required attire: closed toed shoes and long pants.

Plant Tour 1 - Cargill Deicing Technology Salt Mine
Cargill Deicing Technology, North America’s largest producer of Rock Salt, extracts over 2.5 million tons of high quality rock salt annually from its Cleveland Mine.

Since operations began in 1961, the Cleveland Mine has been producing deicing rock salt for the industrial mid-western Snow Belt and parts of Canada. Deicing salt is a significant contributor to winter road safety and is recognized to reduce highway accidents by up to 85% wherever snow is experienced.

Conveniently located on the Cuyahoga river, with access to road, rail and lake freighters, the mine is located less that 1.5 miles from downtown Cleveland and works a vast 9,000 acre reserve of rock salt that lies beneath Lake Erie. The mine is more that 1700 feet below the lake and with fresh air being circulated continuously a comfortable working environment, with a temperature range of 630F to 780F depending upon the season, is maintained.

Purpose made mining equipment, assembled in the mine, and a highly skilled workforce operating over 3 miles out from the lake-shore drill and blast the rock salt from a seam that was laid down some 300 million years ago.

NOTE CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Employees of companies that produce rock salt and/or are members of the Salt Institute and similar entities will not be permitted to participate in the tour. Reason - competitive business interests.

Plant Tour 2 - Insight Oil labs
Insight Services is an industrial oil analysis laboratory located in Strongsville, Ohio. Our facility is 50% lab and 50% offices. The laboratory operation is the heart and soul of our business. Insight processes all oil samples the same day received. The laboratory features ICP Spectrometers, FTIR Spectrometer, Viscosity baths, Particle Counters, Ferrography instruments and much more. Our latest technology is Filter Debris Analysis which uses XRF spectroscopy. Get a first hand look at how filters are washed and analyzed on the XRF. As part of the tour we will demonstrate the process we use to get samples through the lab. This includes all facets of the operation from receiving to report generation. Throughout the tour you will see laboratory technicians performing their duties while explaining the procedures they use. You will get a chance to see the proprietary LIMS tools we use to maintain our high standards of efficiency. This is sure to be an educational and interesting look at the behind the scenes operation of an oil analysis lab.

Legend:
FTIR Spectrometer = Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer
ICP Spectrometers = Inductively Coupled Plasma
XRF spectroscopy = X-Ray Fluorescence
LIMS = Laboratory Information Management System

NOTE CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Insight Oil Labs will not allow any employees of competing firms, nor any people in any way associated with those firms from attending.

Plant Tour 3- Swagelok
Swagelok Company is a major developer and provider of fluid systems solutions, including products, assemblies, and services for the research, instrumentation, pharmaceutical, oil and gas, power, petrochemical, alternative fuels, and semi-conductor industries. Our manufacturing, research, technical support, and distribution facilities support a global network of more than 200 authorized sales and service centers in 57 countries.

There are two facilities that will be part of the tour. The first is our Swagelok – Solon plant that houses the majority of our Swagelok Fitting machining and assembly. It also serves as our corporate headquarters. This facility was opened in 1965 and is 250,000 sq.ft. It is the site of our first implementation of our reliability excellence initiative that started in October, 2007.

The second site, the Swagelok Order Fulfillment Center, is right next door. It contains our valve assembly operations, warehousing and distribution. It was opened in 2006 and is approx. 350,000 sq.ft. Implementation of reliability excellence is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2009, although preparation work will be on-going during the fourth quarter of 2008.

NOTE CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The following is a sample list of competitive companies that Swagelok will not allow to attend the tour of their facilities. This is not necessarily an all inclusive list and they reserve the right to review the attendee list before the tour and exclude any listed attendees from participating. Conflicts: Parker Hannifin, Hy-Lok, Hoke, Circor, Schneider, Oliver, Anderson Greenwood, Hamlet, Fujikin, PY-Lok, Jamesbury, Worcester, Kitz, Century, ABEC, PGI, Circle Seal, Veriflow, Tescom, AP Tech, Go