Milwaukee trip (New Berlin, WI)

I left work a week earlier than expected this time in order to fly to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and look over some of the new equipment that my company had purchased before it gets delivered up north.

For those of you who don't know, my primary job on the North Slope is operating a Super Sucker, a powerful vacuum truck which we use to haul away heavy cuttings from the oil rigs for disposal. Super Suckers as it turns out, are built by Super Products whose factory is in New Berlin, Wisconsin (a suburb of Milwaukee) and when my company invested in 5 new vehicles, they wanted to send someone down who was a subject matter expert on how we use them in our environment, in an effort to make sure that the new units are ready to go to work when they arrive. 

I have often quipped that a Super Sucker is nothing but a 40 ton shop vac, but the truth is that I normally only say that for the benefit of my trainees who are predictably nervous about operating such a large, powerful and expensive piece of equipment. The truth is that keeping these units running, especially in Alaska's arctic, is rather challenging. The trucks are temperamental, high in maintenance, and tend to freeze in as many places as you can think of. So it takes quite a bit of foresight to operate them (just don't tell my new guys, because their nerves are frayed enough).

When I envisioned what a truck factory would be set up like, I suppose I went with what I know, and pictured our shop in Prudhoe Bay, where each unit is in it's own bay and parts get brought to it. But of course an assembly line would make a lot more sense. (I suppose that's why nobody ever put me in charge of a factory). The tanks are placed on a track system, to be moved from station to station to move the unit to the parts rather than the parts to the unit. It was a system that was good enough for Henry Ford, and it's still works today.

So, for my co workers who are reading this, there are a few differences that you may notice from previous models. There is a manual locking mechanism which has become standard on all models. This is a secondary set of locks that can be optionally used in order to better secure a load, rather than relying only on the hydraulic dogs. If you don't feel that you need them, they don't need to be engaged.

The new Esbar heater system has been included on all of the new units. Super Products has done rigorous testing on the heater with their arctic package system and has had positive results. It is true that there are still more ideas under development for heating the glycol system, but at the time of order, the Esbar was the best choice, and all five new units will be equipped with them.

A new addition that may give us some pause is the plunger system to hold the side tubes closed, and allows them to open automatically whenever the tailgate opens. This may create a problem in draining the side tubes when we park the units in our warm storage tents as that we cannot open the tailgate to allow the tubes to drain. Bolts on the tips of the plungers are able to be adjusted, which will allow the side tube to be cracked though not fully opened. New procedures may be required to better maintain the condition of the side tubes. But we will definitely need to work around this change.

Overall, I was happy to contribute to the process of purchasing our new equipment, and to lend my voice. I was also glad to see that we are collaborating with the manufacturer to produce a better product. I think, even though there will be a few small changes to the new SuperSuckers, that they will be the same, high quality product that we have all come to expect from Super Products.