Aerco International Inc. (Northvale, NJ) manufactures commercial water heaters and boiler systems. The company's signature product is a high-efficiency, self-descaling water heater that uses vertical stacks of helical coils that share a common steam riser and condensate return pipe. To keep field repairs and coil replacements simple and cost-effective, each independent coil set is connected to the common pipes via a threaded nut connection. The longevity of the heat exchanger is critically dependent on the integrity of these connections.
To ensure the quality of these threaded connections, Scott McGrath, a continuous improvement engineer and Six Sigma Black Belt at Aerco, incorporated a BoltFAST fastener-joint analysis software package from Sensor Products Inc. (East Hanover, NJ) as part of the company's ongoing quality inspection program.