Maybe, as Harold Wilson once said, ‘a week is a long time in politics’, but if we take the
average seven days in the life of a compressed air distributor, it’s probably not long enough.

Here, Richard Hewitt tells us about a typical week for the team from Anglian Compressors,
Atlas Copco’s distributor in the East Anglian region

As far as is known, no distributor ever
died of boredom, and that’s simply
because of the nature of the calling.

It’s about being on duty 24/7, 365 days of the
year, and the sheer complexity of services
that have to be available. It’s also about
coping with a wide variety of industries and
applications, mastering the technologies of
the latest compressor innovations,
responding to the vagaries of the logistics
and engineering tasks involved, and,
ultimately, running a healthy business within
the constraints of a near-recession economy.

The challenge can be a physical one –
delivering a compressor with only a grassy
incline access to the site, or having to crane a
unit into a tight space after the factory roof
has been removed – or it may require a
financial involvement, such as presenting a
convincing case for a customer’s equipment
replacement to sceptical management.

Compressed air is not lightly dubbed ‘the
fourth utility’. It is a vital ingredient in
production processes across industry,
commerce and public sector organisations
and, as such, it may be thought by those
outside the business that selling essential
compressed air equipment to industry is an
easy task for a distributor.

That scenario is far removed from reality.

It is a busy life for a compressor distributor,
as the week outlined below shows.

Monday – Visited an aerospace customer
to price up pipework alterations. A new
CNC machine is being installed to
improve the speed of component
manufacturing, which required a new air
supply. Atlas Copco AirNet pipework
system was identified as a suitable
solution.

Tuesday – Met with an engine
manufacturer to present an energy report
showing the possible savings from fitting
Energy Recovery Units to the GA200 and
GA160 Atlas Copco compressors on-site.

The customer was impressed with the 9-
month payback and potential CO2 savings
and will be placing an order shortly.

Wednesday – Post-installation customer
care site visit to ensure a pet food
producer was happy with its new
GA90VSD FF compressor. The machine
was needed to provide air to the new cat
food line, with the customer very
conscious of energy usage. The new
compressor is connected to an Atlas
Copco ES8 control system which links in
all the compressors on site.

Thursday – Visited site of a warehouse
and logistics company to discuss reducing
air usage. An air survey was
recommended to identify leaks, so they
could be fixed with air flow meters linked
to the company’s BMS system. This was to
help identify when leaks occur to ensure
energy isn’t wasted.

Friday – Performed an energy survey and
data logging at the site of a precision gears
manufacturer. It was shown how energy
savings of over £6000 per year could be
achieved with a new variable speed drive
compressor. Better still, thanks to the
improvements to machine outputs in
recent years, we were able to replace the
18kW compressor with the smaller
GA15VSD, which has an output of only
15kW.

Saturday – Visited a detention centre,
where compressed air is required to lift the
industrial-sized washing machine on-site.

The existing vane type compressors were
identified as old and inefficient. New Atlas
Copco LF piston compressors were
recommended to improve reliability and
reduce running costs.

Sunday – My highlight of the week.

Received notification Anglian
Compressors has won the coveted Atlas
Copco Distributor of the Year award for
2012. All the hard work has paid off, but
without the team effort none of it would
have been possible.

From these examples it is clear there is
much more to a distributor’s role than
conducting sales transactions. Whether the
compressed air application is as varied as
agitating mud at a sluice gate, helping
produce snow at an indoor ski slope or
making a museum dinosaur move, it’s always
an in-depth involvement to implement,
manage and maintain the continuity of a
user’s compressed air supply in the most
cost-effective and energy-efficient way.