Category: Blogs

There are many industrial and commercial environments that rely on the use of equipment and products that operate in potentially explosive atmospheres. Hazardous environments can be found in industry such as oil and gas, mining, chemical processing etc.  

To ensure the safety and integrity of equipment’s and products used in explosive environments, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has developed the IECEx scheme.

IECEx products are equipment’s, components, and systems that are specifically designed and manufactured for use in explosive atmospheres. These products can be electrical as well as non-electrical like mechanical products.

Short Video About IECEx and importance of it.

IECEx versus ATEX in Explosive Environments.

As compared to ATEX which is self-declaration in nature, IECEx products undergo rigorous testing in 3rd party laboratories, external assessments, and certification to verify their compliance with international standards and regulations. IECEx products are built to mitigate the potential risks associated with flammable gases, vapors, liquids, combustible dust present in hazardous locations.

The certification process for IECEx involves several stages:

1.    Manufacturer Assessment: Manufacturers willing to obtain IECEx certification must undergo a thorough assessment of their quality management systems, production processes, and technical competencies. This evaluation ensures that the manufacturer has the necessary capabilities to consistently produce compliant products.

2.    Type Testing: IECEx requires manufacturers to submit representative samples of their products for extensive laboratory testing. These tests evaluate the equipment’s performance under various conditions, including temperature, pressure, and potentially explosive atmospheres. The goal is to assess the product’s resistance to ignition and its ability to prevent the release of excessive energy that could trigger an explosion.  A worse case scenario is also tested for an outlier situation that can result in catastrophe.

3.    Quality Assessment: In addition to type testing, IECEx also focuses on the ongoing quality control measures implemented by manufacturers. This assessment ensures that the production processes are continuously monitored, and the products maintain their conformity throughout the manufacturing lifecycle.

It is very important to note that the certification process is annual/bi-annual in some cases to ensure continuous adherence to international standards. All updated certifications can be found here 

IECEx products and certification play a vital role in ensuring safety and minimizing risks in industries that operate in hazardous environments. By adhering to rigorous testing and assessment processes, manufacturers can demonstrate the conformity of their equipment with international standards. IECEx certification offers numerous benefits, including global recognition, enhanced safety, compliance with standards, and streamlined market access. Ultimately, the use of IECEx-certified products promotes a safer working environment, protecting both personnel and valuable assets in industries that operate in potentially explosive atmospheres.

LPG Filling plant is one such explosive environment due to presence of Liquified Petroleum Gas. JASMA products for LPG Filling Plants are IECEx Certified. Our LPG Conveyor chains, Filling Heads, Pallet Parts, Sprockets & Pulleys are IECEx Certified, giving peace of mind to our customers.

Data is like Art, it is subjective and open to interpretation!  It is very important that one understands the represented data, numbers and statistics to avoid misinterpretation. 

Need for Breaking Load in LPG Conveyor Chains

LPG Conveyor chains are assembled and installed in hundreds and thousands in numbers at a time. The strength of the chain assembly is dependent on the strength of its weakest member link. Thus, it is extremely important that manufactured chains are randomly tested for breaking load or some form of rupture test.

JASMA manufactured Chain links undergo a pre-defined cadence of breaking load tests as per our product quality requirements; this ensures our products are of the highest quality and reliability in the real-world.

Conducting Load Test using Single Strand Method

Typically, during a load test, a pre-defined number of links are assembled and a gradual pull load is applied, the point at which break occurs is the load of breakage. Test method setup image shown as “Single”.  This breaking load is reported either in KN or KgF. All manufacturers report a minimum breaking load value. For example, JASMA F801 chains achieve a minimum breaking load of 6300 KgF.

Loop Method

In the method described above (“Single” method), a single assembly of chain links are tested. Now, if we make a loop of the links, and test the same links again (setup illustrated below), lets call it the “Loop” Method. We achieve more than double (2x) the breaking load.

While both links used are from the same manufacturing batch and have same chemistry and other parameters, it is interesting to note that just the variation in test method dictates what breaking load is achieved.  Double breaking load of the chains can be easily reported by simply using the “Loop” method of testing.

Feel free to reach out to us to know more about our LPG Conveyor chains and how we test them.  You can read more about our F801 chains here.

This blog is written in the interest of educating our customers.

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.