Who knew that changing gas meters can pose a risk for injury to workers in the utility industry?
That finding was very unexpected to Dr. Naira Campbell-Kyureghyan and her engineering students from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee (UWM); so much so that it pushed them to action.
They set off to create a safer work environment for technicians charged with servicing gas meters by designing a new tool to aid in the task.
But reaching that goal got a big boost from a unique partnership Campbell-Kyureghyan formed with Andy Lobo, Director of Product Management & Development at Snap-on Industrial, a division of tool maker Snap-on, Inc. Together they brought the vision of fewer technician injuries to life by engineering a new gas meter wrench.
Surprising research
Campbell-Kyureghyan is the founding director of UWM’s Consortium for Advanced Research in Gas Industries (CARGI), an organization dedicated to improving ergonomics, safety, productivity and quality in the utility world.
The consortium is composed of partner companies representing large and small business in the energy sector nationwide. One of Campbell-Kyureghyan’s research priorities is finding ways to diminish work-related field injuries and fatalities.
Through their work, Campbell-Kyureghyan’s student team discovered that loosening the gas meters’ large fasteners, some of which have been rusted and tightly torqued for years, requires workers to use a tremendous amount of force. Conventional wrenches often slip in the process, causing a particularly high rate of injury.
“These slips of the pipe wrench from the nut are causing severe shoulder, knee, rotator cuff and torn ligament injuries,” Campbell-Kyureghyan said. “Those injuries cost thousands of dollars in medical bills and lost wages.”
Lobo and his colleagues have extensive experience in helping customers solve similar issues.
“Snap-on is often called upon to develop tools that improve safety and productivity in a wide variety of industries,” Lobo said. “We recognized early on that Dr. Campbell-Kyureghyan’s expertise in ergonomic research and Snap-on’s engineering and manufacturing resources could work together to develop a unique and effective tool to reduce injuries for gas industry technicians.”
Gas meters technicians typically carry equipment bags weighing as much as 80 pounds, which contributes to fatigue and added stress on the body.
So the challenge Campbell-Kyureghyan gave to her students was to develop a wrench with interchangeable heads to accommodate different fastener sizes, reducing weight, while also ensuring that the tool wouldn’t slip.
Designing a solution
The first prototype didn’t fully achieve their goals, so they went back to the drawing board for a second try. That’s when Campbell-Kyureghyan received inspiration for the wrench’s design from an unlikely source.
“After going to the zoo one day, I saw an armadillo for the first time in my life, and I thought, ‘this is it; this is how we’ll make the handle,’” she said. “We envisioned the core of the wrench being an aluminum stick with a slot in it. A sleeve would then slide over the slotted stick which was attached to the handle. It reminded me of an armadillo. I called our new prototype a dilo handle.”
With this new design, the second prototype with the dilo handle was much closer to what they envisioned. Next, Campbell-Kyureghyan asked Dr. Ben Church, a materials science and engineering professor at UWM to lend his expertise.
Together, they came up with the right mixture of materials to make the wrench lightweight, yet strong and durable enough for repeated use by gas meter technicians.
With the new prototype taking shape, students were tasked to test the wrench and see how it performed from an ergonomic standpoint, measuring the strength required and pressure placed on the user’s hands during use. Those measurements were tested against traditional adjustable pipe wrenches.
“We saw up to a 40 percent reduction in muscle activity and a tremendous reduction in grip pressure, in comparison to a standard pipe wrench,” Campbell-Kyureghyan said. “That was amazing.”
The team also experimented with materials to reduce the weight of the tool. Campbell-Kyureghyan arranged to have CARGI partners test the wrench in the field. Their only major recommendation was to redesign the rounded handle and make it rectangular to reduce the likelihood of the technicians’ hands slipping during use.
After the third prototype was developed, Campbell-Kyureghyan met with Lobo and Andy Ginger, president, Snap-on Industrial, to demonstrate the wrench’s benefits.
“What I saw was a tool that improves the way technicians were doing their work. It makes their lives easier and makes the job go quicker,” Lobo said. “It also reduces the strain on the individual doing the work, and when you add all of those things up, it’s a rather ingenuous development.”
Lobo and his team took the prototype and used their understanding of tools to make further improvements to it. They redesigned the interchangeable head retention mechanism to allow a technician to operate it with just one hand, refined the end of the handle to prevent someone from applying a “cheater bar” to it, and improved a few other features.
The finished tool, called the Snap-on Gas Meter Wrench, features a 19-inch handle, made of lightweight, aviation-grade aluminum. The wrench enables users to apply greater leverage and torque without fear of the wrench slipping under extreme forces.
Its design also reduces peak pressure points on the hand by 20 percent as compared with traditional wrenches, and cuts muscle activity in the arm and shoulder by 20 percent and 40 percent, respectively.
The entire project, from UWM’s initial research to Snap-on’s production of the finished product, took about three years. The Gas Meter Wrench is now available through Snap-on Industrial.
Public-private partnership
UWM Chancellor Mark A. Mone praised the collaborative research for offering a platform for students to learn and industry to tap into different ideas.
“Public-private research partnerships such as this are not only vitally important to our regional and state economies – they are transformational,” Mone said. “Together, Snap-on and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee are positively impacting thousands of lives.”
Snap-on has invested heavily in recent years in its technical education program. The goal is to work in partnership with public and private universities and technical schools to help train the next generation of technicians.
“These kinds of projects are very important — matching ideas with the efforts of the many. Matching universities and companies with the American people is the best weapon America has in winning the global competition,” said Nicholas T. Pinchuk, chairman and CEO, Snap-on, Inc.
The company has also developed specialized certification courses for community college and technical school students enrolled in various automotive and other maintenance career programs. These certification courses aim to properly teach students to become proficient in the use of tools and equipment.
Lobo said the project was a perfect example of creative thinking.
“The thing that impressed me the most was that the idea came out of watching gas meter technicians do their job, and struggle with their job,” he said. “Dr. Campbell-Kyureghyan and her students had a better idea. They were able to observe the work, identify aspects that needed to be optimized, and improve the enterprise as a whole in the process. And it was something as simple as a wrench.”
About a dozen students worked on the project in the past three years, including 25-year-old Patrick Loshek, who helped measure internal forces of the wrench during use.
“It’s great to see everyone from freshmen all the way up to graduate students getting involved and working together at UWM,” he said. “Snap-on was great to work with. They were very responsive and open to our ideas and what we had to say. It was a very positive experience.”
Campbell-Kyureghyan said she hopes the students gained an understanding of all the steps involved in bringing a product idea to fruition.
“The students learned so much in the process from conception to going to market. The whole process happened in front of their eyes,” she said. “When we’re educating engineering students, first you identify the problem, and then you need to think of how to fix it and make sure it works. But you also need to know how to market it. This was a very rewarding project for everyone involved.”
