Solving the problems that show up every day.
We're booked solid for many, many weeks out.
And we have to slip a couple heat pumps in.
Well, we go to find a way to do that without delaying other customers orders.
We can get everybody together in the company and make that crisis go away.
We'll find a way to get that heat pump to the customer.
My name is Douglas Bruner. I'm a Production Supervisor.
I work about 50 hours a week.
Most of the people at the plant work about 40 hours a week.
I spend about 7 to 8 hours on the floor and only about an hour at my computer.
Try to get here in the morning. Look at the schedule and what's due.
And then I'll prioritize all the heat pumps in order so they make it through at the right time.
Out of those 20 heat pumps there's going to be problems with 3 of them
to where they got the wrong part, or a part's missing,
or something happened in electrical and we got to fix that problem
so those 20, all 20 of them go out that same day.
I supervise about 20, 21 people, 22 people.
We plan on actually adding to that but we're at 22 people there's a lot of problems that come up.
Could be short a part. Could be a wrong part.
I got to make sure that everybody's got what they need.
All the tools.
I mean there's always something.
When you're doing 22 people there's always something that needs ...
somebody needs help or questions.
I went to Alexandria Technical College.
I got a Diploma in Fluid Power.
I got a Diploma in MET which is Mechanical Engineering Technician.
And then I got a Diploma in MAS which is Machine Assembly Specialist.
Electrical I had to do for a year. Two years of math I had to do.
And then they give you ... you have to do a year of Business at the same time you do the rest of it.
They teach you to be the head of the company at the time instead of just a worker on the bottom.
There are a lot of problems that show up every day.
Some are easy. Some are hard.
You got to be able to get everybody to work together to fix the hard and big problems.
And then you've got to work one on one to fix the small problems.
We have hand-held pipe benders.
We have big electric pipe benders.
The more pipes that we bend with the machine or by hand is less fittings that we have to use on
the heat pump.
Every time you use a fitting there's a spout where you have to bridge or solder.
And that's a spot for a potential leak.
So we try to make our whole heat pump that's pre-bent.
We use torches all day long. We use soldering all day long.
We have computers out on the floor for tracking labor.
We have a vacuum charge and test station that got made especially for geo-thermal heat pumps.
A lot of people don't know about it yet.
You hear of geo-thermal heat pump and you hear of like a furnace.
A furnace normally gets assembled in a factory.
Gets put in.
But most people hear geo-thermal heat pump and it's something that should be built in a special
place and it's you know really complicated.
I can tell you it's not complicated.
I mean we have I believe 8 parts in our whole cabinet that run off of refrigerant and water.
And furnaces have a whole lot more than that.
Ours go together very, very quickly and there ain't a lot to them.
If you know how to braze and solder you can build one in your garage.
More and more people are jumping on the bandwagon.
The government is getting involved in doing tax credits.
And power companies are getting involved to do on and off peak and do a few.
They're starting to give a lot of rebates out and giving money back to the people that put them in.
I know it's going to make us less dependent on oil, natural gas.
It's just going to keep on getting bigger and bigger.
And pretty soon people won't know what a furnance is.
They'll know exactly what geo-thermal is. And I'll know that I'll be a part of that.
I wouldn't be afraid to come in and apply. It's very simple and everybody can be trained.