Life at MP Systems

Wade Anderson:

Hey, welcome to another episode of Shop Matters sponsored by Okuma America. This podcast was created to talk about all things manufacturing related. Today in the studio ... Actually, we're not in a studio, as you can tell by the recording, we're using a Team session because I'm working out of my home in York, South Carolina, and we're still dealing with the social distancing and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. So joining us, I've got a well-known company, MP Systems. We did a lot with MP from high-pressure coolant and filtration systems. Kermit Wright why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself and talk about the team here with MP and a little bit about your company.

Kermit Wright:

Thank you Wade. Yes, my name is Kermit Wright. I'm the National Sales Manager for MP Systems. And today our team members with us are Mike Sayers, who's our General Manager and also the founder of the company. That's where the initials came from MPS. And we have two engineers with us as well. One is Kyle Quintin and the other is Brian Jalbert. Both are developers that developed a lot of the new products we have out here. Our company is located in East Granby, Connecticut. We manufacture a wide variety of coolant-related products from high-pressure coolant systems to filtration systems, to mist collection to wash down guns.

Wade Anderson:

So being as we're doing this remote. Let me ask you to start off with, how has the coronavirus pandemic changed the way you guys are operating business? Are you using different types of technology to communicate with customers?

Kermit Wright:

Well, I think the technology has always been around. We probably just never used it as much as we do today. So things like Teams here has been great. We've always done a lot of lunch and learns. Now we do a lot of presentations and webinars online. They seem to work well. They seem to be good fillers for people that have been captive audiences stuck in their kitchens and basements and wherever else they may be. So we've used a lot of that media of late. So it has worked out well. It's interesting I always thought that you had to be face to face with people to really make a difference, but it seems like we're making a decent impact just doing things over the internet. So I think it's worked out well. We have younger people here. We have a fair amount a young group, Kyle and Brian being them who are a little bit more technology savvy. So I think this has worked out well for them as well. So all in all that the technology's here, we're just using it a lot more today.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. Now, have you guys had to work remote quite a bit?

Mike Sayers:

Some groups have. The factory and all the engineers have basically been in the plant the whole time. So we've not really ... We had a short period when it first hit, that we had some slowdown. But except for the salespeople and the contract people, everybody's been in house working. And we just had to be careful with putting programs in place to clean stuff, moving stuff around so people could work at a distance. So really the bulk of the company's still been in the plant operating.

Wade Anderson:

Excellent. Kermit, you made a good point about using the technology. Obviously this has been around quite a while. I've had Skype for business on my laptop for years now, and it's just one of the things I never really gravitated towards it. So this has definitely forced my hand to kind of get out of my comfort zone a little bit and try things a little bit differently, and it is interesting. I think the somewhat older generation, it took a little bit of coaxing to get them on board, but then once you start using it you realize it's pretty seamless.

Wade Anderson:

So there's been a lot of times I'll pull a quick Teams meeting together with people where before I'd be trying to conference call them in on my cell phone. Now real quick, I can pull a Teams meeting together, and in a matter of seconds have a group of people sitting here face to face. So what kind of service and support infrastructure has changed during all this? Have you guys done much different in terms of how you communicate or are troubleshooting equipment? Do you have service guys on the road?

Kermit Wright:

Mike you want to answer that one?

Mike Sayers:

Typically, we've relied on the local dealers for service. So I mean, most of them have been out and about. Generally, manufacturing's been deemed essential. Maybe there hasn't been as many people around, we're talking to some different people, but amazingly enough that didn't really change a whole ton. We're still talking to service guys on cell phones the same way it's always been. We have parts still going out. We really haven't seen any trouble with shipping. The vendors that provide us parts. We've really had almost nothing that's a been hard to get or slowed down. Everything's happening a little bit slower, but everything's still happening. I don't think really there's been any major change at all.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. One of the things that's changed a lot for us is everybody's grounded for the most part, so we're not flying. So a lot of our service guys and application engineers are driving to locations instead of flying before. So we've got to plan accordingly that way whenever we send somebody out to Texas, for an example. You know that's a long road trip to get from Charlotte out there. But other than that, we haven't changed a whole lot either from that aspect. A lot of our customers are still wide open and still need service and support. And we're still doing that. Just trying to adjust the best way we can. So Kermit, why don't you spend a little bit of time and have your guys jumped in, but tell us a little bit about the products in general. What all does MP Systems offer? And kind of walk us through some of the main things that you see customers can take advantage of.

Kermit Wright:

Well, we have a wide variety of products that are related to high-pressure coolant. I'll just kind of touch on a couple of them, but we do have Kyle and Brian that are going to get a little more involved later on in this podcast to talk about the latest and greatest stuff that we've got regarding filtration. But we have a wide variety of models for high-pressure coolant. We run as low as 300 PSI units all the way up to a high of 3,000 PSI. We have almost 20 different models out there right now. So basically we've got something for just about everything in everyone's application. From single-turret machines to multi-turret machines, running oils, running water-based. So of course our main product has always been RF8. That's our staple. That was the pump that came out.

Kermit Wright:

Geez. Mike, when did we come out with RF8? 2006, maybe 2007?

Mike Sayers:

In '06. Yup.

Kermit Wright:

Yeah. Been a long time it's been a great product. I mean, there's been some slight enhancements over time, but it's tried and true. It's dependable and still remains our biggest seller today. So, and like I said, we do other things. We do things like wash down guns. Which is a great accessory for cleaning out the work envelope for a lot less money than an OEM unit. We do make a couple different chillers. We make one that's mounted on the pump for real estate savings. We also make a standalone version that can be put on with, or without high-pressure coolant system. And I can say, one of the big things that ...

Kermit Wright:

We also do mist collection. Typically, we make that ... We actually make it three ways. We make it so you can mount on a machine, and we also have a tree stand, where basically stands on its own. That has really come on quite a bit. Popularity of mist collection has really jumped up in the past year or two. Of course, we have filtration. That's kind of the big thing today. Everybody's in for solving issues with filtration. Again, I'm going to ... We have Kyle and Brian, our two experts on it and developers. So I'm kind of let them talk a little bit more about it, farther down on the podcast. That's where we are today with our products.

Wade Anderson:

Excellent. Mike, when did MP Systems start?

Mike Sayers:

3/17/05 is when the company was first started.

Wade Anderson:

Wow.

Mike Sayers:

So I started making them in '97 for actually for Swiss machines, for a local dealer. I used to be in the welding business and I got into this business, so I wouldn't have to travel anymore. That's worked out really well, but that fellow retired. And then I ended up just starting this place. It worked out really good. I liked manufacturing stuff. I liked doing the engineering part of it. And the Morris Group was my biggest customer and it just seemed like a really, just a great idea for us to work together. They ended up buying the company. So I just have stuck with it and done the part of it that I really love and it just keeps growing. It just keeps getting better. We have more and more people. We have more people who move up throughout the organization and also we've got a lot of people who've been here for a very long time. Who started out in the assembly floor or elsewhere. It's just been a whole lot of fun watching it grow.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. And talking about employees, Brian, I think you said this is a kind of your one and only job, right? You were there from when you got out of high school all the way through college.

Brian Jalbert:

Yeah. Yeah. I've actually known Mike since I was in Boy Scouts, so that's where we met. And I've been, since I graduated high school in 2011, I started working here. I was in and out for college, but I've pretty much been here ever since. So yeah, I think I got a notification on LinkedIn. It's been about nine years.

Wade Anderson:

All right. Kyle, how about you? How long have you been with MP?

Kyle Quintin:

Oh, just about 10 years now. 10 years in June. So yeah, I'm hitting the 10-year mark.

Wade Anderson:

All right, excellent.

Kermit Wright:

So they're still look like they're 22-years old. I don't get it.

Kyle Quintin:

I'm trying. I'm trying.

Wade Anderson:

But that'll catch up to you quick in the machine tool world.

Mike Sayers:

We'll have to have some kind of party in June then, Kyle.

Kyle Quintin:

Yeah, it's been a wild ride. Like Mike said, I started here in assembly. I was a mechanic before I got into here and I had an okay job, but I interviewed with Mike and just the excitement about the company and the growth. And it's like, "Yeah, I'll jump on board." And I mean, watching a grow throughout the last 10 years. People like Brian Jalbert, having him on the team as a young guy. And then two of us went to a trade school up in Massachusetts. Brian continued on to another school and it's been a good ride. It's been a really good time.

Wade Anderson:

So Kermit, you shared a story several years ago in the partners' building about how you find talent, how you find employees. You kind of have a unique take on finding some good people. Do you mind sharing a little bit of that?

Kermit Wright:

Well, believe it or not, I stole that from Mike Sayers, because Mike has done a great job. I'll let Mike tell you how he's done it. Because these two guys he found here, especially Kyle that was just a diamond in the rough in how he dug him up. And got such an excellent team member. I think I have to give the credit to Mike on this.

Mike Sayers:

Well, I think it was mostly just people who found what we do, if they were curious about it, and if it was interesting about them. I mean, we make pressure washers and filters. It's not really complicated stuff until you get into it to make them so tough and to live in this adverse environment and to work under these conditions. So you've got to find someone who just finds it interesting. Either the people who work in sales were excited about traveling and going to see people. The people who designed the equipment, who are excited about just making something tougher and better, making sure the guy who got it, it works good for him. So it's, I think we kind of called that curiosity. And then the other thing that was important is if they came to work for MP Systems, if they could see a path that would be fulfilling that gave them what they wanted out of life.

Mike Sayers:

I remember what was really interesting about Brian. I knew him from Scouts, but in the first robotics program, I remember he taught himself Pro/ENGINEER, and anybody who's ever worked with that software knows how tough that is. And he just made the complete model of our robot kind of a side thing. And I will never forget that, to get through something so tough, clearly this guy just loves it. And I remember when I first interviewed Kyle, he was more worried about the correct answer to a question about a component, even lost track that he was being interviewed. So there was a guy who was excited. I mean, and at that point, the interview was over. He found what we were doing interesting and he could see a path where he could build his life here. And I think if you meet those two requirements and as you look at your employees, you make sure you continue to meet those.

Mike Sayers:

People are having a good time. They're having fun. It's interesting. Maybe they don't want to get out of bed and rush in here, but by the time they're in the car they're starting to get excited about what they're going to do. And that they can see a path going forward not just to the end of the month, but years. They can see an opportunity for them to grow or they could move around if they don't like the one they've had. And we've been very fortunate. We've been able to do that. I think it's interesting. If you come walk around here, there's a lot of young people and if you walk around six months later, you'll see some of them in different places, but still moving.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah. I think that's a key to retention, right? It's one thing to attract good employees. It's something else to be able to retain them and keep them on the teams. So very good points.

Mike Sayers:

It is. Really, I don't think the world does a good job. When you go through school and the way you choose what you go to school for, there's just not a great opportunity for people to really understand what they want to do. And most people we hire end up ... At one point, Kyle introduced me to his old boss and we hired him. Tim Rego was going to be a service manager. And he's the one who does all our purchasing and really does the more complex parts of operating our enterprise-wide software. I don't think he really ever imagined doing that, but boy it worked out really good. He's excited about it and he can see a path and it's been magnificent for us.

Mike Sayers:

So I mean that ability for ... I mean, the company has to grow for it to work. And as long as the company keeps growing and you hire people who were not just filling slots, but who were excited about it. They pick out their own spot, they see it. He watched how we suffered because it wasn't being done well, and he thought maybe that's something he could do. And we talked about it and we put him in different places to see how to do it. And then before we knew it, he was operating the whole thing. So it's that flexibility and really, if you're worried that people are interested and you're paying attention, they'll tell you what they're interested in. And if you keep putting them at stuff they're interested in and you really ain't got to pay much attention to them, they just go and do a good job because it's like I said, they get up in the morning and they got things they're trying to accomplish. They just go in and do it.

Wade Anderson:

And then there's Kermit.

Kermit Wright:

Well, yes. I don't know how I got in there.

Mike Sayers:

Well, back when Graham was my boss, I could pick on him, but I can't do that anymore. So we'll have to ask someone else to do that.

Wade Anderson:

I can fill that slot.

Mike Sayers:

Perfect. We're all right, then.

Wade Anderson:

Oh, it's good. So back to kind of the product side of things, you mentioned 1,000 PSI all the way up to 3,000 PSI. Talk a little bit about those applications. Where would somebody make that transition? I think pretty much everybody in the manufacturing world knows when and where to use 1,000 PSI coolant. Where do you make that transition to the ultra-high pressure where you start stepping up into the 2,500, 3,000 PSI arenas?

Mike Sayers:

Classically when you go back into the '90s when we saw people using really high pressure, it was often because they were running oil in small drills or small tools. And it was really just to get the flow out the tip of a tool. So like when you look at a drill, you see two tiny little pinholes going down it, and then compared to those pinholes, the flutes coming up are caverns. So we had to get a lot of oil coming back up, but we're starting to see more and more now where really high horsepower cuts, really tough tools, really rigid setups. And then they're able to ... And so higher strength or high strength and then high temperature alloys that have just always been brutal to cut. That they're just driving them a lot harder. So if you can imagine clearing the chip off the face of the tool before it cooks it, because that's where the hottest material is sliding across the tool to get in there behind it.

Mike Sayers:

And then to get that much coolant there because there's a lot of energy being put into there in order to keep it cool you have to. The minute the coolant gets there and gets hot. You also there's so much horsepower when you got 75 horsepower, 80 horsepower going into a cut, that can boil the water off very quickly. So we have to move more water in. We have to get it into the right place. So this has led to bigger and more powerful pumps, better plumbing systems to flow more coolant within the machines and putting it right on the tool. And we're seeing quite a bit of excitement about this. We've been shipping quite a few units for that type of work. So that's really what's led to the extreme pressures. So I guess either really, really heavy, hard work. Or it's always been for drilling.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. So what kind of considerations ... Sorry, say that again Mike.

Mike Sayers:

Did I answer that good?

Wade Anderson:

Yeah, absolutely. What kind of considerations does somebody need to take on the machine? So let's say I'm a customer, either buying a new machine or if I've already got a machine on my floor, an existing machine, what kind of considerations do I need to take in to adapt a 3,000 or even just a 1,000 PSI-type system?

Mike Sayers:

Most machines come out of the box today ready for a thousand, sometimes different tooling packages on mills and lathes can affect the flow. So if you really need high flow, almost everything will tolerate eight gallons a minute because that's really been the industry norm, eight or nine gallons a minute. So like the RF8, it's actually 8.8 gallons a minute. That's fairly easy to do. To get over that with a lathe, Kyle made a special application for a couple of Okuma lathes. They can go, I think we call it out for 3,000, but it probably worked at 35[00]. Does that seem about right?

Kyle Quintin:

Yup.

Mike Sayers:

For milling machines, we have them call you. I've modified some in past, in lathes, raised up the pressure, but with a milling machine to get the pressure higher, you really have to look carefully at the spindle, how the coolant goes through it because the most important concern is that those pressures, you start turning things that are passages into hydraulic cylinders.

Mike Sayers:

So like if you have a tube that coolant goes through and there's a joint where two tubes joining together with an O ring, you have to imagine that as a hydraulic cylinder, trying to push the component apart. So we end up doing to capture things, to capture those forces so that they basically don't affect it the way the machine works. Either changing bearing preloads, turret clamping forces. The sealing parts of it is that's fairly basic engineering, but containing the loads. And then if there are some types of fluid joints that leak a little bit. As the pressures go up, they leak a little bit more so maybe some drain holes, but probably the biggest concern always to us is containing the forces and making the machine happy with the change.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. So talk a little bit about the filtration side of things. I know that's been kind of a hot topic, at least some of the work I've been involved with customers here lately. How do you guys bring products to the market that help from a filtration standpoint.

Mike Sayers:

I'm going to try and be quiet. Kyle or Brian, why don't one of you guys speak up?

Kyle Quintin:

Yeah, Brian, you wanna speak to that a little bit.

Brian Jalbert:

Yeah. I mean filtration. Since I started here, I mean, I worked on the shop floor just putting the pumps together. But when I started to move into engineering, that really the big thing was looking at filtration. That was kind of the gap that we saw. And that was where I really started working on developing products, was the filtration side. So with our kidney loop, just having a passive filter on a system. That can do a lot to keep this environment, but we call it below the waistline. Everything in the tank, it can get kind of gross down there. In machines that don't always run, you can see it in kind of in job shops a lot more. If you don't always run your machine, your coolant can degrade over time. You can have evaporation if you use a water-based coolant, so your concentrations can change. The chips, just the material that you use or coatings that they have on them can interact with coolant and cause it to degrade over time.

Brian Jalbert:

So little things like that, just having those, all that sitting together in one big bucket, eventually the things are going to start to go bad. So having a kidney loop as that kind of first step just keeps things moving. It helps get some of that stuff out of the tank. So it can help cut down on how often you have to clean out your machine tool. And it kind of helps make the job a little bit nicer to do. If you have to clean out a tank, it'd be nice if it just smelled like water and not like a sewage plant. So that's a big help for people. Just the quality of the job that you have to deal with. You have to work around an environment that you really don't want to be there, then people tend to do a bad job. But if it's a pleasant job to do, if it's easy to do, then people are more inclined to do it.

Brian Jalbert:

And a machine runs better. It lasts longer. You don't have to do as much of that hard, more expensive maintenance if you do the small periodical maintenance along the way. And so to try to encourage that, we want to make products that are easier to work on and help make that environment a little bit nicer for people. So using the filter bags that we use, you have a nice handle on there. You can pull it out, throw it in the trash, and that makes things a lot nicer to work with. And then the next step from that is what I've been working on for the past couple of years now is the purge unit. And the purge, what that does is a more active filtration. So if you have a set flow rate from your high-pressure coolant or your flood units, or what have you coming through your machine tool, that's taking all of those chips and debris and bringing that into your tank.

Brian Jalbert:

And if you have a conveyor that does a pretty good job of getting the big stuff out, but it's the little stuff that still sits in the tank and it can still degrade that coolant and you still get all those bad effects eventually. And eventually you lose volume in your tank, too. Eventually those chips are going to build up and take up space that you would normally have coolant in. So what the purge does is it pulls out all of that debris all the time and it gets it out, puts it in filter bags that are again, easy to clean, easy to take out and returns all that clean coolant back into the clean side of the machine. So now all the pumps are pumping, clean, filtered, coolant all the time. So that can do a lot as well with the wear in a pump. The life expectancy of certain things.

Brian Jalbert:

If you're always running brand new, clean, coolant through everything, your machine's going to last longer. But if you keep running through abrasives and all those little chips and everything, then you start to see wear in the pumps, the hoses, the machine tool. All of that starts to break down over time. So you might not see the problem now, but in six months, a year, two years whenever it happens, it's gonna happen. And eventually that machine is going to break down and that's a big investment. So doing little things along the way to help actively keep that from occurring. It's definitely a small price to pay, to not have to replace a whole machine or a turret or something like that.

Wade Anderson:

What's installation like? So say I have a machine on the floor and I want to add a purge, is that something that I would install myself? Is that something you guys come out and install? How intensive is it?

Brian Jalbert:

Like all of our products, like Mike was saying earlier, we do use our distributors, to install the products. So we don't have a full service team out on the road, all over the country, ready to go. We can service the whole country, but we only have a couple of people that do it. So having people that are in the area all the time. They're already there, they're already working on the machines. So they're available to do that kind of work. But the purge is relatively simple to install. It's definitely something that an end user could do. And that's something that I kind of drove to work towards while I was setting up the install of the purge. So for the most part with basic machines, a lot of the stuff that moves very common machines like the Okuma, the M560 and the 460, those we already have install packages, ready to go for those machines.

Brian Jalbert:

So for an end user, there's less of the guesswork. A lot of that's already been tried because a lot of people have those machines. So you end up helping each other out. Every time we see a new machine, we can add to our list of installs, but basically all it entails is a suction point. So you have to be able to get that coolant out. And we supply a dip tube in the kit. Or we would like I was saying, if you need some kind of a basket or a funnel or something like that, if we've seen the machine before, then we already have those things manufactured and we can ship those out with the order. You'll need a return for the clean coolant, which again is just a dip tube. You just find an empty hole in your tank and drop it in the clean side and that's pretty easy.

Brian Jalbert:

And then the power, you hook up your three-phase power, the kit comes with a power cord and a breaker. So it has everything you need, all the little ferrules and the wire ends and everything. So you can hook everything up with what you have in the kit, and that's it. Unlike a lot of products, there's no signal interface. You don't have to hook up any of that stuff. It exists. We do have that for applications that do need it, but for the most part, the purge can run entirely on its own. So it'll just run all the time, filter all the coolant in the tank, make sure everything stays clean. And then when it alarms out, you don't have to stop your machine to clean it out, which is a huge thing for a lot of people. For 24-hour applications, any alarm just completely stops production until somebody can come and fix it.

Brian Jalbert:

And during the day there's a guy standing there, so it's not a huge deal, but if it's a Saturday night or one o'clock in the morning, nobody's going to be there to hit that button and turn it back on again. So with the purge, not being hooked up to an alarm circuit or anything like that, if we do end up with dirty bags in the middle of the night, the machine can keep running. And not stopping that machining process is definitely a huge aspect of the purge that we wanted to keep intact as well. So having that kind of passive system running is definitely a great way of not inhibiting that machining process and allowing it to keep going for longer.

Wade Anderson:

Interesting. Is there certain materials that you see are a better fit whenever you install a purge? Or is there a trend where people cutting aluminum or cast iron? Or is it kind of across the board?

Brian Jalbert:

Exactly that, actually. Aluminum and cast iron are the big ones, cast iron, usually with cast iron there's graphite that's used as a releasing agent for the molds. And so graphite, while cast iron is magnetic and people tend to go towards magnetic conveyors. Graphite is not magnetic. And so it ends up going through those conveyors and getting into the tank. And it makes almost like a cement when it mixes with the way oil and it just kind of piles up in the tank and it's really, really hard to get out. So that's a huge problem for a lot of people. And that is one of the biggest applications that we see for the purge is those cast iron jobs. The other application that you see a lot, like you said, is aluminum. It's light. It's usually smaller particles. And even with the bigger stuff it floats on the top of the coolant. And that can cause a lot of problems as well.

Brian Jalbert:

So with both aluminum and cast iron, those tend to be the bigger ... I mean, that's what a lot of people machine things out of any way, but those two are where you see a lot of the problems occurring. And that's where the purge has really shined a lot is in those two applications, but it does work on anything. And the filter ring that we use to hold that filter media. I redesigned it a little bit from what our normal one to accept a lot of different types of media. So the purge can actually take a filter bag, like what we normally use in our high-pressure units, but it also accepts pleaded cartridges and high-efficiency bags that we've been using a lot recently. And so being able to change the media to accept a different type of material definitely does a lot for us to have one unit that can service a lot of different applications. So it's just a filter media change instead of a whole product change to accommodate different applications.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. Very good. What about new products? What do you guys see on the horizon? Where's MP Systems going to be five years down the road? Where do you see trends in the marketplace? And what do you see your future being?

Mike Sayers:

Do you want to talk about what you're doing Kyle?

Kyle Quintin:

Sure. I'll talk a little bit. So stemming off of what Brian was just talking about for filtration, I've worked on a lot of different types of filters. I consider conveyors filters, spent a lot of time with them. Spent a lot of time with Brian's product, different applications. And the big thing that was hot, I don't know, probably a couple of years ago was these spin filters, hydrocyclones, whatever you want to call them. So I've been spending a ton of time looking into those. There's a lot of people out there doing it right now. I don't think anyone's really doing a exceptional job so far, but I did see definitely a gap in the market where there's a need for a type of filtration where you don't have to have a bag or a filter that you need to remove and change. Where the purge system is pretty universal for a lot of different applications.

Kyle Quintin:

There are certain applications where the type of fines you get in the tank, don't so much fill the bags up as they do just blind them off. And that becomes a problem when a customer has to change it daily. So what I've been working on is basically a hydrocyclone setup that's for all intents and purposes, we just kind of jacked it up so that we're getting a lot more flow, a lot more throughput through our system. And we created a nice, easy way for the underflow or the debris that these filters remove. We created a nice, simple, easy way to just scrape it right out into your hopper, rather than having to take some other kind of secondary sediment tank and shovel it out and clean this other tank and all this other stuff. So we're basically pumping about 80 gallons a minute through these things, and a smaller amount ends up in this settling tank right underneath it that you can then just scrape right out into your hopper. Nice dry chips, debris, whatever you want to call it. And then you can just dump all that stuff with the rest of it.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. So what is that system called?

Kyle Quintin:

I guess we're going with "Medialess Purge" for now, because it doesn't involve any kind of filter media, but still in the primary stage.

Mike Sayers:

Okay. Who would know if you don't know?

Kyle Quintin:

That's what's going to work for now. I guess.

Wade Anderson:

When do you think that'll be out to market? What's your ETA on releasing that?

Kyle Quintin:

I think fall time.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. All right. Very good.

Kyle Quintin:

We're in the motion right now, getting some test sites, working out the kinks and whatnot, but we put a lot of research in and really understood the theory behind everything and the math before we actually jumped headfirst into this. So we have a very good understanding of what applications it will work well in and what applications we should steer away from. But again, having the bag purge that Brian has really allows us to have a full fleet between, okay, if you're doing this type of work, the aluminum, the fines. Put the bags in, they'll do a great job. If you have an issue where you have so much graphite or tiny particles that your bags are blinding off, then the medialess system will be a great solution for you depending on the type of material and fluid you're using, so on and so forth. But really understanding the core theory and math is what's going to allow us to make sure that our customers are happy with it and it's successful at the end of the day.

Wade Anderson:

Describe blinding off. I've heard you use that term a couple of times. So if anybody doesn't understand what that means, describe what that is.

Kyle Quintin:

So I guess maybe coating the inside of the bag, coating the walls of the bag, as opposed to filling it up, volumized with debris. So if you have a bag with a certain amount of surface area, typically most chips and stuff will just fill that bag right up and contain the volume of the bag. But in some applications where you have a lot of fine particles, it does tend to just coat the walls. And blinding it off refers to basically not allowing the fluid to flow through anymore.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. Excellent. All right. Kermit, if somebody wants to get in touch with you guys, what's the best way to find MP Systems.

Kermit Wright:

Go right to our website.

Wade Anderson:

All right.

Kermit Wright:

So it's www.mp-systems.net. And we also have a toll-free number as well. They can always call. So we're readily available, easy to get ahold of. And of course they can ask you.

Wade Anderson:

All right. Excellent. I love it. All right, guys. Thanks for joining us today for everybody that took time out of your busy schedule to listen in to our podcast. I appreciate your time today. Again, my name is Wade Anderson with Shop Matters. If you have any questions about today's shows or ideas for upcoming podcasts, or if you know somebody that would like to join us on a podcast, please reach out to us at okuma.com/shopmatters. See you next time.