As facilities across the country prepare for the upcoming Fall turnaround season, they face many new challenges. The COVID virus has caused disruptions in raw material availability, manufacturing, logistics and labor shortages. It has also changed the way business is done so facilities, manufactures and suppliers have had to adapt. Planning ahead this turnaround season will be critical to the success of upcoming projects but as we all know emergency situations happen.

Quick turn requirements during turnarounds are very common and can create enormous complications. In many turnaround situations process equipment and components cannot be inspected until the equipment is offline. If during the inspection it is determined that the plastic random packing needs to be replaced there is typically a narrow window of time to have the plastic tower packing on site and installed.

That is why KemFlo is working hard to ensure that sufficient inventory levels of the Tri-Packs, Pall Rings and Saddle
style plastic random packing. Resin manufacturers around the world are experiencing major material shortages of common and specialty resins. Many resin manufacturers have filed force majeures and have customers on resin allocation. This has resulted in higher raw material cost  and extended lead times. KemFlo is working closely with our network of suppliers to ensure raw material availability and adequate inventory levels of our plastic random  packing products as well as our other product lines such as our AIK tank lids, fittings, medical products and custom products.

In addition to working closely with our supplier network KemFlo has recently purchased a new facility in Houston, Texas which gives us an increased capacity for inventory and helps to keep lead times to a minimum. The Gulf Coast Region is a hotbed for industrial and manufacturing facility turnarounds. Our Houston distribution center gives us an advantage in servicing the Gulf Coast Region as well as the entire United States of America. It also allows us to better serve our international customers with easy access to the Port of Houston as well as many air freight options. Informing our customer base about potential supply chain issues in regards to plastic tower packing is another step that KemFlo is taking to help them plan in advance for potential turnarounds.

We are also gathering market information that will help us determine and predict our customer’s demand for  specific tower packing styles, sizes and materials of construction. It is important that suppliers, manufacturers and end-users work together as a team in order to minimize product lead times and project schedule disruptions. Communication between all parties in the supply chain network can result in more efficient turnaround process.

Kemflo manufactures the Tri-Packs, Pall Ring and Saddle style packing in 1”, 2” and 3.5” sizes and in a variety of resins including Polypropylene, CPVC, PVDF, Tefzel and more. Kemflo also offers manufacturing of custom plastic random packing configurations. For more information on KemFlo’s Tri-Packs, Pall Ring or Saddle style plastic  tower packing please visit our website at www.kempac-packing.com or call us at 905-832-1217.