CPS Hug Your Cat

CPS Celebrates National Hug Your Cat Day

There is a long-standing tradition between engineers and their love of cats. Maybe it’s a fascination with how they always seem to land on their feet. With June 4th being National Hug Your Cat Day, it’s the ideal time to celebrate cats, engineers, and the relationship that they have together.

Our company’s President, Mac McIntosh, is awfully fond of his own feline friend, Jessie, and he’s not alone. “An Engineer’s Guide to Cats” is a tongue-in-cheek take on explaining why cats get the love that they do.

CPS - Mac & Jessie
“Mac” and his beloved feline friend Jessie.

If you happen to be a cat lover (and really, who isn’t, at least to some degree?) then there are some resources that you’ll need.

The first comes from Mac Delaney. Engineering for Cats: Improve the Life of Your Pet Through 10 Ingenious Projects is an entertaining look at problem-solving life with Fluffy.

Adafruit has an entire blog category dedicated to Cats of Engineering. Whether it’s helping to solder together a circuit board, or working with an Arduino controller, the collection is sure to remind you of your ideal working partner’s vital role.

CPS - Hug Your Cat Day - Cat of Engineering

Finally, All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome does an awesome job of explaining AS behaviors through the lens of a cat’s actions. Whether it’s sensitive hearing, scampering from one place to another, or a particular habit when it comes to eating, our furry friends can help us understand our human friends a little bit better.

So on this National Hug Your Cat Day, make sure to take time to do just that. And then thank them for spending hours with you while you work on your next passion project. They’re family too, after all.

CPS Mousetraps

Better Mousetraps – The Art of Solving Problems

At Custom Powder, we have tremendous respect and appreciation for novel solutions to complex problems, as well as the people who create them.

Changing human behavior is, perhaps, the most complex of problems. That’s why we loved this short presentation from Dan Pink on emotionally intelligent signage. The basis of Dan’s presentation is that a sign is more effective if it caters to or encourages someone’s emotions.

https://youtu.be/yuEO6zpEaxI

This presentation got us thinking about what we do here at Custom Powder. For many of you, your business depends on being able to do something better, cleaner, and with more efficiency than the status quo.

You need a better mousetrap.

There is an age-old question in business about whether it’s better to build or to buy the tools and technology that you need. More often than not, that question can be answered by looking at the focus of your own business and where the money is best spent. If you’re a pharmaceutical company, your time and money are better spent in R&D rather than in building process or containment systems.

The other point in Dan’s talk that we find interesting is the PechaKucha platform itself – the idea that we should all talk less and show more.

There’s a lot of talk that happens in the world. There isn’t enough show.

Maybe you’re a pharma company that needs to keep your process sterile. Or maybe you’re in the cannabis industry and dealing with a wealth of unknowns. Whatever the case, we’re here to help.

Sure, we could bore you with hours of talk, but that doesn’t help you get your job done. So instead, we’d prefer to get down to brass tacks and face your challenges head-on, because that’s what matters to you, and it also matters to us.

When you’re ready to show the world what you can do, give us a call. Let us build you a better mousetrap so that you can focus on what you do best.

CPS Grilling Hacks

5 DIY Grilling Hacks for the Engineer in You

With Memorial Day fast approaching, we’re pausing to remember those who have served and given their all. We’re also celebrating the freedom that their sacrifice has given us. One of the most popular ways of doing that is by getting together with friends and family, and firing up the grill.

Here at Custom Powder, we’re always looking for ways to make things better, to do something a little bit different, or to build a custom solution to complicated problems.

But we like to have a little bit of fun while we’re doing it.

For example, we recently had a cardboard smoker contest here at the offices. In the photo below, you’ll see Bryan Lin‘s entry.

CPS Brian Lin Smoker

That got us thinking about better ways to grill, and apparently we’re not alone. The Internet is brimming with grilling suggestions, smoker hacks, and even DIY for those of you without your own grilling apparatus.

Here are a few of our favorites.

The Clay Pot Smoker

Food Network’s Alton Brown is a big fan of this method, and has a video where he explains why it works so well. But the idea itself is simple — Take a couple of large, clay pots, put a grill grate into them, and prepare for something delicious. Even better? There’s no charcoal required. Read the full how-to over at Make.

CPS Clay Pot Smoker

The Bitty-Q

You ever find yourself out at the lake, enjoying a cold one, and then shocked to find that there are no grills available? We’ve got a solution for you. All it takes is a drink can, a couple of charcoal briquettes, and a wire coat hanger. The King of Random has a video tutorial.

Washing Machine Grill

CPS - Washing Machine Grill

We love seeing innovative ideas, and this one is pretty great.  Sachin Mohiputloll shows us how to take an old washing machine drum, and turn it into a world-class BBQ grill. Bonus points to Sachin for his use of a cutting wheel, because we love using power tools.

The BBQ Table

We’ve all seen it. Everybody gets together for an afternoon of food and fun, but there’s one person left tending the grill. Usually removed from the rest of the festivities.

But what if the table was the grill? That’s the question that Jag Grills answers. The company combines a BBQ grill and fire pit with a six or eight-sided table to make sure that everybody can be in one place.

Bonus: High-Tech Brisket

Could the world’s best brisket come from an aluminum smoker, built by some Harvard students? It might sound crazy, but just wait until you hear how they made it.

CPS - Wired Smoker

The behemoth weighs in at over 300 pounds, and it eliminates all of the problems that smokers have. There is a refueling chute, preventing the need to open the smoker. Temperature control is handled by a Raspberry Pi computer, connected to fans. Oh, and the team developed the contraption in the dead of winter. Not exactly the ideal time to try to smoke a notoriously-difficult cut of meat.

The whole story is fascinating, and worth a read over at Wired.

ICS - Aseptic Isolation

Aseptic Isolation – The Time Is Now

The meeting was held in December. Over 200 people attended a 2 1/2 day seminar hosted by the International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers (ISPE). The takeaway? The time had come for aseptic isolation to come into its own.

The problem? The meeting happened in 1995.

Flash forward and we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of what we can do with aseptic isolation. The question is, what took us so long to get started?

That answer is pretty simple — the technology wasn’t ready yet. The idea was solid, but failures caused delays. For many companies, especially those that had existing clean room implementations, the opportunity cost and associated risks to integrate an aseptic isolation system were simply too high.

But — if we can go out on a limb to say it — the time has come to kill off the clean room.

Death to the Clean Room

It’s important to note, first off, what aseptic really means, because this is the biggest area where clean rooms fail.

Aseptic isolation means keeping people out of the space, thereby limiting contamination or cross-contamination.

In fact, clean rooms are such a common point of failure that, when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) walks in for an inspection, the inspector will bypass the isolation system and head straight to the clean room. The FDA has even gone so far as to take a stance, where the agency normally does not, in saying that aseptic isolation should be the new standard.

The fact of the matter is that clean rooms have points of failure that aseptic isolation systems do not. We live and operate in a world that is risk-averse. So even if the FDA is not saying “thou shalt use aseptic isolation systems”, the agency is acknowledging the inherent risks of clean rooms and giving guidance to avoid them.

That being the case, why is the FDA still approving clean rooms? The short answer is that people still want to use them. ROI is the primary concern, even if that ROI is only positive in the short term.

The Aseptic Advantage

The heart of the conversation is also the proverbial elephant in the room. Building and implementing aseptic isolation costs more money up front than building a clean room. But in most cases, those costs can be recouped many times over within a short period of time.

The arguments for spending the money come in many forms. First, there is less risk for lost batches. When your raw materials cost is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single batch, losing one to a clean room failure is a tough pill to swallow.

Second to that, isolation systems require less space. In some cases, where the systems can be moved from one area to another, increased productivity alone is enough to justify the additional cost. We’re no longer tied to having all operations within a single location and forcing everyone to work inside of it.

This brings on another point that is often missed – operator satisfaction. An operator is able to use a glove box, rather than having to wear full protective equipment with their face and eyes covered. The rules of the surrounding room can be less stringent as well. In many cases, the room may only need to be kept at an ISO 7 level, rather than an ISO 5 and the required associated cleaning.

There is, of course, the associated time cost as well. Every time that you have to gown up to enter a clean room, you can bet on fifteen minutes. Then once you are ready to leave, there are another fifteen minutes involved. Add those thirty minutes, plus two breaks during a day, and then lunch. Suddenly the costs start to make a lot less sense when lost minutes turn into lost hours.

For those of you considering aseptic systems, there are other advantages that need to weigh on your decision. Not the least of these is the associated cost for running an aseptic system versus a clean room. Environmental controls, airflow, and maintenance all turn into money that you’re having to spend. With a closed, aseptic system, each of these factors experience a dramatic cost reduction.

Finally, it’s worth looking at the job of your quality assurance person. In days past, every operator in a clean room was another potential source for contamination. Further, compared to a clean room, the smaller size of an aseptic system allows for easier certification.

Answering Your Aseptic Questions

The three questions that we hear the most when it comes to aseptic systems have nothing to do with their capability. Anyone who has spent any time around clean rooms versus aseptic systems can tell you their advantages. What people do want to know is simple:

  • What’s your aseptic isolation lead time?
  • What accessories do you use?
  • How much does aseptic isolation cost?

The simple answer for all three of these is “it depends.” The deeper answer is that it depends because we don’t believe in building cookie cutter solutions. We’d love to have a conversation about your situation to see how we can help and give you an idea of cost. We have built custom aseptic isolation solutions for customers from Iowa to Canada, and China to the east coast of the United States.

We are Integrated Containment Systems and Custom Powder Systems. We work with you to custom design the best solution to your problem, then build that design for you. And even better, because we’re based in the United States, we’re going to be there to fix a problem if something goes wrong.

What can we build for you today? Contact us and let us know.

CPS - Napkin Sketches

Napkin Sketches – The Story of Paul and the MRI

At Custom Powder, we believe in working with you every step of the way, from pencil to product. We realize that inspiration often strikes at the most inopportune times, and sometimes you just have to grab what’s in front of you and write it down.

You’re not alone.

Some of the greatest ideas in history came to life by writing them on a scrap of paper, the back of an envelope, or as you’ll read in today’s story, on a bar napkin.

The Irish poet and playwright, George Bernard Shaw (himself no stranger to bar napkins), famously said, “You see things and you say why? But I dream things that never were and I say why not?”

A Guy Named Paul

Paul Lauterbur was an American chemist who turned a napkin into a Nobel Prize. It may have taken over 30 years for the prize to make it into his hands, but along the way, his work changed lives.

The story starts in the late 1930s. Paul was a peculiar kid. He wasn’t especially interested in sports, or playing games, or anything else that the other children were doing.

He preferred to spend his time doing chemistry experiments.

Looking back, Paul describes his childhood as idyllic. His parents both worked hard, but they loved spending time with their family. Though the standout character in Paul’s past was his aunt. She was, according to Paul, “a very gentle person, always willing to listen to a child.”

It’s possible that his aunt was responsible for Paul’s eventual path toward science as a career. She was, herself, fascinated by natural history. She gifted Paul a subscription to Natural History magazine and those early readings helped guide Paul’s curiosity.

Not only did his aunt listen to him and encourage his experimentation, but his teachers did as well. His science teacher even went so far as to allow Paul to experiment in the back of the class while his fellow students studied their lessons.

College was the time when Paul’s life took a dramatic turn. He studied Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. One day, during lunch, he began sketching out an idea on the back of a napkin.

The Birth of the MRI

As is common with big ideas, the MRI started with a smaller one. The 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to a pair of scientists who had studied nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Paul’s idea was that he could use NMR to produce images of the body instead of limiting its use to studying chemical structures of substances.

Paul went on to work at Stony Brook University in the 1960s. As a visiting faculty member to Stanford in 1969, he dove in to further study NMR. Once he returned to Stony Brook in 1970, he continued his studies, and it was that work that would earn him the Nobel Prize in 2003.

In 1971, he sent a paper with his findings to Nature magazine. His example included grainy images that showed the difference between “heavy water” (water with deuterium atoms) and ordinary water (good old H2O). The magazine wasn’t impressed with Paul’s work, blaming their decision to pass on the fuzzy images that had accompanied the submission.

It’s important to note that no other imaging technology of the time could tell the difference between the two types of water.

Problem solvers are not people who give up easily, and that was Paul’s story as well. He inquired about the rejection, stated his case again, and today you can still read Paul’s original paper online.

Paul would later reflect on the irony of Nature’s decision:

“You could write the entire history of science in the last 50 years in terms of papers rejected by Science or Nature.”

From a Napkin to History Books

Paul Lauterbur will go down in history as the father of the modern MRI, and the entire story began on the back of a napkin. You don’t have to be an artist to be successful with napkin design. In fact, it’s less about the art itself and more about getting an idea out of your head.

What’s your big idea? We’re here to help you make it into a reality.

Negative Stress Gauge

Combatting Negative Stress in the Workplace

When you strive to give your work 100%, 100% of the time, it’s going to lead to stress. With our expertise in aseptic isolation, we know a thing or two about negative pressure.

It doesn’t matter how much you love your job. At some point, things are going to get stressful.

Deadlines, budgets, relationships, and a thousand other factors all come into play to keep us from performing at our very best.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), some 60% of American workers feel workplace-related stress regularly. Workplace stress has become an epidemic, so it’s beyond time that we all learn how to deal with it better.

What Causes Stress?

There are thousands of polls each year that cover stress in the workplace. Almost without fail, respondents name the same concerns: Money, performance expectations, bosses, and healthcare. Taken individually, none of these concerns would stand out from a list of usual stressors. But when you look at the fact that the workplace is the one area where all of them come into play, it’s easy to see why combating stress at work is such a topic of discussion.

Identifying Stress Warning Signs

The signs of too much stress in your life are easy to spot, but they’re also easy to mistake. Headaches, lethargy, and muscle aches could mean you didn’t sleep well last night. Or they could be signs of stress. The best practice is to look at everything that you’re feeling, and then decide what’s causing the problems. Here are some warning signs that you’ll want to watch:

  • Difficulty sleeping
  • Irritability
  • Depression
  • Trouble concentrating
  • Digestive problems
  • Tense muscles
  • Headaches

If you’ve spotted the problems, the first step to solving them is to take action. So step back, take a deep breath, and get ready to get better.

Solving Workplace Stress

It starts at home — A healthy diet helps more than your waistline. Eating the right foods can help your energy, your level of concentration, and your overall level of stress. Take time to plan out your meals for the week. Not only will you save money, but you will also find yourself healthier.

Talk it out — The old water cooler serves as more than a place for refreshment. It’s also where employees can take a few minutes to lean on each other for support. Try talking to someone in a different department, who is likely to see things from another perspective. But don’t leave the boss out of the discussion. They can often solve many problems if they know what is happening.

Change positions — Studies about the dangers of sitting have come to light over the past few years. Not only is sitting all day bad for your health, but it’s also bad for your stress symptoms too. If you have the ability, stand up at your desk or go for a walking meeting. Small changes can add a lot of movement to your day.

Set boundaries — Today’s jobs end up going home with us far more often than they should. We don’t see the danger in answering a few emails after dinner or taking a call on the way to work. But it’s important to have time away from the office so that you can best use the hours when you’re there. Don’t be afraid to set an Out of Office responder on your email at five P.M., or to send a call to voicemail instead of feeling like it has to be answered now.

Use your vacation — The workaholic syndrome has become an epidemic. A growing percentage of workers who are eligible for vacation refuse to take it each year. But instead of performing better than those who use the vacation that they’ve earned, these employees are burning out from carrying stress. Your boss, your team, and your family all need you to take your vacation days, so don’t be afraid to use them.

Get some help — Workplace wellness programs have grown in popularity. The best ones involve far more than discounted gym memberships and fitness trackers. Most insurance today covers mental health, so put it to good use. Speaking with a counselor, therapist, or psychiatrist isn’t a sign of weakness. In fact, it’s a sign that you understand how valuable it is to have a third party’s ear.

Good housekeeping — Learn to triage. Not everything is an emergency, some things are merely important. When we try to give equal attention to every matter all at once, we will often let things fall through the cracks that needed to be dealt with first. If it seems like everything is critically important, talk to the stakeholders who can help determine which parts need your attention first.

Platitudes don’t solve problems. Managing stress in the workplace starts with each individual making an educated assessment of their problems and potential solutions. Combatting that stress doesn’t fall onto one person. It includes everyone, from the newest employee to the most tenured person in management.


At Custom Powder Systems, we’re incredibly proud of our workplace safety record… it affords us a number of benefits including lower insurance costs which we can pass onto our customers. If you’re interested in learning more about the why, hows, and whos of the ways we do the things we do, sign up here to receive our emails.

Art of Engineering Graphic

Trade, Tariffs, and Tenacity – The Power of Solving Problems

The clock is ticking.

There’s been a lot of talk about trade and tariffs and this and that. Maybe too much talk.
If you look under the shiny surface of sound bites and white noise, you see… surprise, surprise… that reports of manufacturing’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. 

At Custom Powder Systems and Integrated Containment Systems, surrounded by the work ethic ground into the hands and hearts of middle America, we just smile, shake our heads, roll up our sleeves, and continue to ask…
 

“How can we help?”

History is littered with companies staring into the rearview mirror waiting wistfully for the Willis Reed-like return of the good ole’ days, and while waiting, they were hit by the trains of progress. 

It has always been this way.

Likewise, history hoists heroes onto pedestals and into business school textbooks with case studies of moves, mergers, and market share. We lionize the giants who move forward fiercely… who refuse to sink their heads in the sand and shout about falling skies, broken dreams, and the golden days and ways things used to be. 
 

On which side of history will we find you? What are you prepared to do?

At Custom Powder Systems and Integrated Containment Systems, we’re prepared to embrace your toughest problem with “bring it on,” your non-negotiables with “no worries,” and your apparent budget nightmares with “let’s see what we can dream up together.” 

At Custom Powder Systems and Integrated Containment Systems, we look at each aspect of each challenge through different lenses and filters until solutions unspool before us in a collaborative, connected system that will make both scientific and financial sense for you.

Contact us today and let us know the containment challenge you’re facing so we can face it—and solve it—together.

Because the show must go on. 

The clock is ticking. Let’s get to work.

History is waiting for you.

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Drum inverter isolator. Yea…we make those.

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From idea to conception. A client had five pieces of existing equipment and needed them contained. This drawing shows the isolator we designed specifically for them. What unique challenges can we help you solve?

CUSTOM POWDER SYSTEMS is celebrating 13 years of The Art of Engineering.  If you have a containment, storage or handling problem that needs solving, contact us at info@custom-powder.com or call us at (417) 868-8002.

 

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