Month: December 2022

World Safety Day

In 2003, International Labour Organization (ILO) observed the World First Safety Day. Since then, April 28 is recognized as World Safety Day. The purpose of this day is to create awareness about occupational accidents, diseases and hazards.

Good Safe Society and workplace starts with policy makers on the top that can ensure there are laws and regulations that support safe working environments. However, policy makers can only guide, it is the responsibility of organizations at large to go above and beyond the laws and regulations to ensure work environments are safe and healthy for all.

Latent Failures

Accidents are not a standalone event, it is cumulative effect of the choices an organization makes during,

• procurement,
• operations and
• maintenance.

Organizations that buy expensive machineries but cut corners by procuring lower quality spares or skipping maintenance have experienced accidents. History informs us well, whether it is an event at oil refinery, LPG Filling plants, medical device operation or aviation accidents. There are countless cases in the world, irrespective of the industry sector where in the event of failure or accidents, organizations become reactive and often blame the person to close the incident.

More often than not, a thorough root cause analysis for accidents will often point towards an organization failure (systematic pressure) to oversee non-accidental events. Events leading up to the accident would often show several near-miss events that could have prevented the accident.

These near-miss event are also a class of latent failures; these are less-apparent failures that are typically hidden and often missed, that can result in a human at the end making an error resulting in an accident that harms people, machinery, organization and society.

Organizations need to support the right culture to ensure latent failures and near-miss incidents are detected and more importantly corrected. Whether, it is performing timely preventative maintenance, or buying the right product that ensures safety and well-being.

Heroes of Safety

For any organization and occupation to be safe, it is a joint effort of several people a.k.a safety Heroes. People that pickup near-miss events and perform corrective actions on the job need to be rewarded.  Plant, maintenance, technical and procurement team members who prioritize safe products and practices at work should be rewarded.

JASMA & Safety

Being in safety critical industries, we continually keep our eyes and ears open to learn from our customers, improve and evolve our products to ensure maximum safety for our customers and their operations.

One such example is our products for LPG filling plants. Our LPG Filling & Palletising plant spares are 100% safe for the LPG Environment.

1. Ex-certification on our conveyor (Chains, sprockets, pulleys), filling (heads) and palletising products (closing bars) gives peace of mind for safe operations.
2. “M-Series” conveyor chains from JASMA (CC600M, J20M etc.) ensure no-tooling maintenance, further reducing any occupational injury risk associated with repetitive manual work.
3. Our dry conveyor system products ensure a shift from wet to dry operations hassle-free, a dry system eliminates occupational hazards due to water spillage and accidental slips and fall. Read more about how dry system can work well with west system here.

Ultimately, safety is an on-going practice and a journey, it does not end with workplace, but a way of life. World safety day is a good reminder for us to step back and recognize our efforts to overall well being of people, plant and organization. It is beyond wearing Personnel protective equipment (PPE) or performing preventive maintenance, it is about choices we make, every single day. There are plenty of heroes here that need recognition.

JASMA Conveyor Chains

JASMA has been in the LPG Industry for over 2 decades. We make various type of conveyor chains for the LPG Industry. With improvement in technology and customer inputs, our LPG Conveyor Chains (CC600M, F801, CC625, SM1200, J8014, J20M and other models) have innovated in areas such as metallurgy, production engineering and design.  All our conveyor chains come with JASMA branding.

JASMA Branding on Conveyor Chains

Jasma branding is marked (shown in the image) on the top or bottom of the conveyor chain and/or on the face of the conveyor chains.  Markings not only helps our customers to identify the JASMA brand, but it also re-assures JASMA quality. Besides JASMA brand, each chain link also comes with Ex Certification mark as well as identifiers for production lot. 

JASMA Conveyor chains are branded with one or more of the following marks:

1. Jasma Logo
2. Jasma Brand Name (either as “JASMA” or “JE” signifying Jasma Engineering)
3. Jasma Branding for the OEMs include “JE-KC”.

Illustration of these markings can be seen in the image above as well.

Do reach us at [email protected] to know more about our conveyor chains for LPG and material handling industries.

Did you know?

if companies buy all their machine spare parts from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), by the time one has bought 25% of all machine spares, the amount would be sufficient to buy a new equipment.  

Fear of purchasing non-OEM Spares

Buying spare parts from OEM can be expensive! On the flip side, spare parts from non-OEM companies can sometimes bring about quality issues which can halt plant operation or reduce service life. Nobody running a multi-million dollar operations want to halt plant operation or see safety affected with poor quality spare parts. 

The fear of down-time and indirect cost associated with lower quality spare parts, often result in companies buying OEM spares over and over again, no matter how significant the cost. This is seen across all industries, from LPG, wire and cable to steel plant and oil and gas. 

However, there are ways to find credible quality suppliers for plant and equipment spare parts that not only give OEM-like (sometimes better) quality, but also at affordable price.

How to find quality suppliers for Spare Parts?

There is constant tug of war being played between management and operations, a fight to balance cost and quality.  Everyone wants to buy the best quality at the lowest price. 

While internet has eliminated boundaries and allowed us to get closer to global suppliers, it has become increasingly difficult to separate good suppliers from poor ones.

In many companies, the systems are automated to choose the lowest “bidder” without knowing the quality of the incoming spares. While cost saving looks good on balance sheets, it disrupts smooth operations and adds to indirect costs in the long run.

By keeping the right criteria’s, companies can separate quality suppliers from non-genuine ones.  Here is how:

1. Certification – Certification ensures a certain attribute of a product or service is maintained. There are various certifications and standards in practice today that ensure safety and quality of products. For example, when running an safety critical operations like LPG Filling plants, third party certification bodies like IECEx ensures safe operation under hazardous environment like Liquified Petroleum Gas. Adding a certification criteria as a must have would eliminate poor quality suppliers. However, one must be cautious and understand that some certifications are “self-certified” while others are via 3rd party.
2. References of supply – Ask suppliers for references of their previous supplies. References help to understand track record, service quality and execution capabilities of suppliers. For example, when some of our new customers ask for references, we showcase past references, supply & appreciation letters from our customers. This helps to build confidence from a quality and  more importantly project execution perspective.
3. Quality Process – Good suppliers will always have quality procedures in place to ensure quality and consistency. For example, at Jasma, we control quality through standard operation procedures and consistency of finished goods with multiple point inspection methods, performed both in-house and from national accredited labs. This has helped us to maintain non-conformance rate under 1%.
4. Technical Team support – Suppliers with strong technical teams not just give you good quality, tight-tolerance products, but also deliver the best service and troubleshoot any issues that arise on the job floor. At Jasma, we take pride in our technical team and their knowledge and expertise to provide spare parts solutions that are win-win for all our customers. Our technical team allows us to be lean and provide customized engineering spare parts solutions across various industries.

With a strong technical team, robust quality processes, we are able to have more than 100 happy customers all around the world.  Reach out to us at [email protected] to know more about our products, process and certifications.

Core Values

Jasma has been an ISO certified company for over two decades and its QMS is aligned to ISO 9001:2015 standards and trusted by 100+ customers spread over 45+ countries worldwide.  As we enter 37 years of operations, three foundational values continue to guide our organization, people, products and processes.  

1. Commitment to Quality
2. Customer Centricity
3. Drive to Innovate

Quality Commitment 

Since we started our operation in 1984, quality commitment has been a foundational pillar to our company values. From initial inquiry until dispatch, we closely monitor every little detail. While this sounds obvious, doing it consistently for close to four decades is an evidence to our commitment.  

Being ISO certified and having received Silver rating for zero defect zero effect (ZED) by Government of India also establishes our quality processes. Whether it is LPG, steel, wire & cable, material handling industries or others, our commitment to quality stands. Additionally, we believe the numbers below truly reflect our quality of the highest standards: 

• 35% customers retained for 20+ years.  
• Non-conformance of product less than 1% 
• Resolution to customer complaints within 10 days. 

At Jasma quality is being proactive. In addition to our internal quality checks for every shipment, our products routinely undergo third party inspection at national accredited labs to ensure consistency in our quality. 

Customer Centricity

Being an engineering company, we are truly customer obsessed. Many times our team goes beyond product delivery to provide technical guidance as well.  While we cater to many industries, we like to call ourselves an engineering boutique company, and this allows for having 1:1 relationship with all our customers.  This approach allows to: 

• Customize engineering solution to meet individual customer requirements 
• Provide helpful and cost-effective alternatives while maintaining existing performance
• Personalized Service to keep our existing and new customers satisfied 

Innovation

The third pillar to our company value is innovation. We continually keep ourselves informed with advancement in technology, material science and process engineering to ensure our products are always competent in the global market.  

Development of propriety grade materials and innovation with the Jasma “M” series dry conveyor chain are examples to name a few. Our research and development is always aimed to provide solutions that makes customer life easy and workplace safe. 

National and State governments, along with engineering council have continually recognized us with awards for engineering excellence, year after year. 

What are you waiting for? Get in touch with us TODAY by writing to us at [email protected]

Engineering Masterpiece 

Mangalyaan, world’s most affordable mission to Mars is the epitome of Indian engineering; a mark of quality, performance, time and cost-effectiveness. Similar to the Mars mission, many engineering products are manufactured in India and supplied to rest of the world.

Much like the Mars mission from India, many engineering products manufactured in India are appreciated around the world.  Engineering goods accounts for about 25% of all exports from India (Source: EEPC, India).   The engineering sector of the country is of strategic importance for India’s growth story. Engineering goods include ferrous and non-ferrous metal products, ranging from industrial machinery and equipment to its spare parts, auto and its components, and equipment used for transportation.

India is rightly positioned to be globally competitive. This is possible largely due to favorable labour market and increasing focus on quality system and products:

Economics of Indian Labor Market 

India enjoys low labour costs along with requisite skill sets for manufacturing operation, thanks to increase in engineering graduates every year.  Engineers returning from the western world (reverse brain drain) also adds to the skilled workforce.  

The combination of lower wage structure, vast labour market and skilled workforce has allowed India to cater a range of markets, from emerging nations within Africa, to developed and quality conscious countries in Europe.  

At Jasma, we believe the same quality and safety attributes of products we supply to the developed nations can also be availed by developing nations at an affordable cost.    

High Focus on Quality

Indian industries have adopted some of the best practices of different nations of the engineering world to stay competitive. Among these, an important aspect learnt is the mandate to control quality especially for exported products. 

Whether it is certifying the quality process to ISO standards or qualifying products against quality control measures, organization in India have stepped their game to be globally competent.  

With less than 1% non-conformance rate, on-time delivery and ISO certification, Jasma continues to supply quality products around the world.   

One of our customers from the Middle East in Construction industry says

“It was only after we have done business with you (Jasma) we learnt the quality of Indian Product. We express our sincere appreciation for your workmanship”    

Indian conditions are perfectly suited for engineering goods that require labour intensive process such as casting and forging.  Thus, it is no surprise that India has been the highest exporter to the world for cast articles of iron and steel goods, i.e. HS Code 7325.   

While many looked up to the west for quality in the past, availability of high-quality engineered products at affordable price in India, it is only natural why nations lean to India for their engineering supply. 

At Jasma, we are highly focused on product quality and developing valuable international client relationships to boost India’s manufacturing exports, as well as provide excellent quality for a range of customized engineering products at highly competitive costs. Please read our blog on why you should choose Jasma for your setup.

Quality checks and SOPs have always been north star metrics at Jasma for over three decades, and as a result we have:

• Consistently met customer requirements for quality and product
• On-time delivery
• Achieved a very low (~1%) non-conformance rate
• Resolved customer complaints within 10 working days

Jasma has been an ISO certified company for over two decades and its QMS is aligned to ISO 9001:2015 standards and trusted by 100+ customers spread over 45+ countries worldwide.

What are you waiting for? Get in touch with us TODAY by writing to us at [email protected]

“Don’t learn safety by accident”

This is a common theme in safety critical industries such as a nuclear power plant. Like nuclear power, LPG bottling plants are also mere one step away from a accident;  the cost associated with an accident in the LPG Industry can be huge: 

• Direct cost – Personnel & equipment loss, 
• Indirect cost – Production delay & reputation damage.  

Therefore, a great amount of proactive effort, day-after-day is required by all stakeholders to ensure risk is always averted by using LPG Safe products and processes in a bottling plant operation. 

Fire Triangle

Fire Triangle is a simplified model to understand important ingredients for most fires. The three main elements of a fire triangle are:

• Fuel,
• Oxygen,
• Heat.

In the LPG environment, two primary components of the fire triangle, namely oxygen and fuel are readily available, 100% of the time, and only heat source is needed to start a  fire / explosion.   To prevent such a situation, filling plants around the world ground their trucks and earth the conveying systems to avoid any spark discharge; yet we hear cases of accidents in bottling plant operations.  

Static Discharge – the Hidden Hazard

With LPG, hazards occur during: 

• Transportation of LP Gas in cylinders or bulk
• Operations & Handling of LP Gas
• Storage in cylinders or bulk

While a gas leak is a known and commonly addressed hazard,  static charge build up and its measures for dissipation gets overlooked in practice. The heat associated with a small static discharge can be sufficient to start a fire or explosion in the Liquefied petroleum Gas environment. 

One common source of static charge in an LPG bottling plant is the plastic wear strips or liners used in conveying system to reduce frictional forces with conveyor chains. 

Filling plants procure Teflon or nylon wear strips believing they are anti-static materials as they are black in color.  Not many realize that majority of the polymer grades of Nylon, Teflon, polyethylene and polycarbonate materials have low surface resistivity; making them susceptible to static build up, and inability to dissipate static charge that is build up in the environment.  Thus, choosing a right grade of anti-static wear liners is very important. It not only prevents from generating a static charge, but also helps in dissipating the charge to eliminate any hazards. 

Anti-static wear strips from Jasma are rated (and ideal) for explosion environment, and can eliminate static charge build-up, and provide peace of mind. Similar use of anti-static materials during transportation, handling and storage can reduce other hazards as well.   

The irony is that many times a common plastic hair comb is not allowed in the LPG bottling plants due to the fear of static electricity, but then many products and spares are sourced that do not have anti-static properties.  

Contact us TODAY at [email protected] to know more about our products for LPG safe environments.

Wet Bottling Plants

LPG filling plants started as wet operations.  Wet operations require passing the conveying system through a soap water mixture. 

Soap–water mixture reduces the frictional forces between the conveying track and chain, thereby reducing the heat generated, a common source for ignition in LPG environments. (Check out our blog on silent hazard in LPG Bottling Plant)

Plants can get Slippery

While wet LPG bottling plant with soap solution has its advantages, some of its downside include: 

1. Occupational injury risk associated with manual handling to mix soap with water, and carrying soapy solution to individual trays which are spread across the filling plant. 
2. Slip and fall hazard with spillage of soapy solution around the LPG filling plant. 
3. Poor visual aesthetics associated with untidy plant floor.  
4. Accumulation of dirt deposits in soap solution which increase wear of the chain. 
5. Need for maintenance and upkeep of soap trays 

An LPG filling Plant operation is already burdened with many hazards associated with Liquified Petroleum (LP) Gas, adding occupational and environmental hazards to maintain a wet plant is not necessary.  

Dry Chains for Wet Bottling Plant

Dry chain plants by many are considered new technology in comparison to the conventional wet plants. This has only been possible due to advancement in material science and process engineering.  

By eliminating the need for soap solution, Dry chain conveyor systems fitted with anti-static wear liners provide the same benefits as their wet counterpart; reduced frictional resistance and heat generation.  

To highlight this, a pilot project was conducted by a reputed LPG filling plant oil and gas conglomerate in South East Asia. Jasma dry conveyor chain along with other elements of the conveying system such as wheels, wear strips and pulleys were deployed on a section of a wet LPG filling plant.  

 It was reported by the oil & gas company that by using Jasma dry chain system (combination of Dry conveyor chain, anti-static wear strips, sprockets and pulleys), overall operation was superior in comparison to their existing wet chain system. 

 Dry chain system can be utilized in a wet bottling plant provided compatible grade of dry chain system is utilized, pitch of the conveyor system is identical to the wet plant. 

Check out our detailed blog on advantages of Jasma Dry chain here.  Browse our series of dry chain offerings here.

Contact us at [email protected] to know more about our LPG product offerings.

Riveted Chains

Riveting is a mechanism of fixating two plates or objects together via one or more rivets; where a rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener, cylindrical in shape.  Riveting is achieved by placing the rivet at a desired place and the end(s) are hammered down.

LPG plants typically use riveted chains.  Chain links are assembled together via a pin that is riveted on both sides. When installing a new bottling plant, specialized tooling is brought to perform riveting operation.  Since the plant is not started, there is no LP Gas in the environment, and thus, no safety risk with riveting operation. However, the story is completely different when replacing the riveted conveyor chains.

Replacing Riveted Chains

Conveyor chains need to be replaced in an LPG Bottling plants for couple of reasons. It is possible that chain is being replaced due to scheduled maintenance practice,  wear & tear or in case of chain breakage.

For any of the above cases, replacing riveted chains require the plant to be completely shut down. Specialized tools are brought in to perform riveting on site. LPG bottling plants have many hazards. The shutdown is to ensure no hazardous situation occurs during the riveting process. However, the LP Gas can still remain in the air for longer duration, and create a hazardous situation.

Replacing riveted chains in wet or dry LPG Bottling plants can result in:

• Loss of production / plant down time
• Risk of Sparking and associated fire hazard
• Cost associated with procurement and maintenance of riveting tools.
• Dependency/Cost with specialized skilled labor to perform riveting operation.

Riveted chains are always shipped in small batches depending (for example 5 or 10 meter length). Thus, when replacing 500 meter or 1000 meter segments in a LPG Bottling plant, multiple riveting operations with a specialized riveting tool needs to be performed, further increasing operational time and cost.

Rivetless Chains

At Jasma, we have developed M-series rivetless chain (Design Patent). These chains eliminate all the issues with riveted chains, and make installation as well as replacement quick and easy.

No special tooling is required to connect the chain links. Elimination of special tooling reduces cost associated with riveting tools, labor and risk with sparking. Moreover, when replacing a section or entire line of the conveyor, any worker can quickly uninstall and install the chain links without any prior training.

The rivetless chain by design will not come out in a running plant. The pins only come out (from one side) when two chain links are positioned to form a 90-degree angle, which can never occur in a conveyor track. Checkout our blog on benefits of dry (rivetless) chains.

Compatibility between Riveted & Rivetless Chains

Due to the advantages of rivetless chain over riveted chains, many of our customers have repeatedly chosen Jasma M series rivetless chains. Customers have either completely replaced riveted chains in their LPG bottling plants, or only replaced a section of the plant.  No issues have been reported till date.  Jasma chains are backward compatible with riveted chains used in both dry and wet bottling plants.

Our chains are out of the box compatible with riveted chains without any need for tooling’s or adaptors without any compromise on functionality and performance.  The image on top of this blog shows how Jasma rivetless chains seamlessly fits with the riveted chains.

Jasma supplies both riveted and rivetless chains to 45+ countries across the globe.

Need for Quality Control?

At JASMA, our activities include Design, Development and Supply of Spare Parts, Tooling, Components and Equipment to various engineering industries including LPG, Petrochemical, Steel, Wire and Cable, Textile etc. Our products are custom built to suit customer requirements and various engineering applications.  With such diverse portfolio of engineering products, it is critical to have quality system in place.

Indicators that highlight our commitment to product quality and customer service is the fact that JASMA products are present across 45+ countries, with 100+ satisfied customers, and recurring recipient of engineering excellence awards from national and state governments of India for 19+ years.

While these metrics are an outcome to our customer first approach, within the company, quality management system is in place and Jasma is ISO 9001 certified. Our LPG Product range (chain conveyor, sprockets, pulleys, filling guns, pallet parts) is IECEx certified, further exemplifying our commitment to safety and quality standards, eventually giving our customers peace of mind.

Quality Commitment with Zero Defect Zero Effect

In addition to ISO certification for QMS, our product quality and process control for zero defect is demonstrated with ZED certification. (Zero Defect Zero Effect).  ZED Maturity Assessment Model has been developed by the Quality Council of India to assess on Quality, Environment, Energy and other process parameters.  

ZED is positioned as an integrated, holistic and Capability Building Model that assesses quality led processes, productivity, consciousness towards environment, financial prudence as its core pillars.  Assessment is conducted by accredited (third-party) agencies on 30+ parameters.  

Some of the assessment parameters with ZED include:

• process capability assessment & enhancement,
• design capability,
• customer service & support,
• intellectual property,
• Quality performance levels (in-process & outgoing)
• process control,
• timely delivery,
• waste management,
• safe working environment, and many more

How do we achieve Consistent Quality?

At JASMA, with each customer or research project a detailed project plan is laid out, and PERT and Gantt charts are generated to track and monitor project status (until delivery).  Manufacturing process is controlled with a process control plan to ensure product requirements are met up to JASMA standards. All control points, parameters are defined, inspected-tested and recorded. Only upon meeting 100% of the requirements, the batch/quantity is accepted and processed further.  Sampling & test plan is established for inspection with each project and components. In addition to internal tests & inspection, routine third-party tests at accredited national laboratories are also conducted.

In case of any delays or quality issues during manufacturing, corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) is conducted. Information is collected, analysed and appropriate and effective corrective and/or preventive action is determined to prevent recurrence. This helps use achieve zero defect.

With a robust internal process, coupled with engineering expertise, JASMA is able to maintain and exceed certification standards and supply product that are globally competitive.

LPG Filling Heads aka LPG Filling Guns

Domestic and industrial LPG Cylinders are filled with the LP Gas at an LPG Bottling Plant. In these plants, cylinders are filled with the LPG gas through a filling system. These systems can be manual (standalone) or have semi or fully automatic arrangement (carousels). The bottling environment is hazardous, and extreme care needs to be taken to ensure all products near the filling operations are safe for use in the LPG Environment.

Jasma has been in the LPG Business for over 3 decades and Jasma LPG Products including LPG Filling heads are engineered for safety and highest quality.

JASMA LPG Filling Heads

Filling heads are designed for OPD, check, centre and screw valves.  Jasma LPG Filling Heads come with different constructional variants to suit different valve types.  Jasma Filling Heads are suitable for different filling position as well as orientation of operations.

1. Valve Type – vertical or horizontal
2. Operation Orientation – Manual or pneumatically.

Semi and fully automatic filling head variants of the pneumatic filling heads have provision for auto-centring that is flexible to self-align a non-centred valve.

Each filling head come with a mounting mechanism which is ergonomically designed to provide even weight distribution for a balanced suspension and handling. The filling heads are designed for easy connection disconnection and fitment.

Safety with JASMA LPG Filling Heads

Jasma LPG Filling heads are designed keeping in mind safety of the worker and the plant.  All Jasma filling heads are intended for operations in hazardous areas classified as per IEC 60079.

Jasma LPG Filling heads are IECEx-certified. Jasma Filling heads are LPG Safe due to its construction from corrosion-resistant and non-sparking materials. Special grades of stainless less, brass, aluminium and special polymers are used to ensure the filling heads LPG friendly.  

Even when air is supplied to the pneumatic Filling guns, the nozzle does not open and no product is ejected to the environment. This is safety by design. An additional benefit of this safe design is no wastage of the LPG Product.

Even when the filling head is decoupled from the valve, there is insignificant loss of LP Gas, further ensuring any unnecessary spillage or wastage of the hazardous LPG Gas.

Jasma LPG Filling heads are available for different valve sizes and all Jasma LPG Filling Guns / Heads come with a Ex marking.

Customization of JASMA Filling Heads

Jasma Filling heads work with LPG Handwheel valves (POL valve fitting), LPG Quick On valves, LPG Safety Valve (OPD Valve), LPG Forklift Valves, LPG Camping Valves and LPG Jumbo Valves. 

Being in the LPG business for 30+ years, Jasma is able to customize LPG Filling guns to suit any customer requirements, including special valves.

Recently, a 2-in-1 filling head prototype was developed that can be used to fill cylinders with 2 different size of cylinder valves.  All this while ensuring 100% safety and quality.

Reach us at [email protected]  to know more about our Filling Heads. We supply Filling Guns, service / maintenance kits for LPG Filling Heads to our customers across 6 continents