GP & Larry the Cable Guy @ TKW

Industrial Revolution Ltd represents Crescenzi Induction Melting Equipment (CIME) a company from Italy with in our opinion, the world’s best pressure pour furnace design. In the fall of 2007 I received a call at home from TKW, a German based company, on a Sunday afternoon asking if I could be in Tennessee the next day for a meeting about the CIME furnace. Do to my busy schedule and the short notice for making travel arrangements it was not possible for me to get there in time; however I did make it there for Tuesday. Not realizing that they were expecting a formal presentation I had no choice but to wing it, putting something together in a mater of minutes from information I had on my laptop and relying on my not so impeccable memory. My audience consisted of about a dozen influential company officials and to add to my growing anxiety my first video conference was to include four additional company officials via video link from Wisconsin.

Despite my best efforts, on a wing and a prayer, I was prodded, poked and roasted by almost all the attending parties. Surprisingly, during the presentation I began to take notice of a very familiar individual taking part in the meeting, “Larry the Cable Guy”. I will call him LTCG for short. A somewhat heavy set scruffy looking individual dressed in plad with a notably red neck demeanour. LTCG preceded to tell me that if I expected to sell a furnace to them I had better show up with my “A” game, and went on to explain to me in painful detail that my presentation was a piece of crap. Being the professional that I am, I noted his advise and thanked him for his feed back, explaining to LTCG and the rest of the group that my presentation was below par due to the short notice, and the fact that I was actually traveling, or making travel arrangements for 24 of the 36 hours since initial contact from TKW. Feeling discouraged by the preceding events and wondering what was to go wrong next the guys on the Video link asked me to leave the meeting and told another fellow to give me a tour of the plant.

Up to this point I had not seen the plant, or for that mater been given any information as to the plant layout. While touring the facility, I was convinced that this would be the last time I would see TKW Tennessee. At the end of the tour my guide walked me to the front door where goodbyes were exchanged. To my amazement the plant manager emerged to ask a few more additional questions and proceeded to tell me that TKW representatives were scheduled to fly to Italy to see the Crescenzi furnaces in operation.

The rest was history; the furnace was purchased and installed. Unfortunately two years later with the economic turn down, the plant is scheduled to be closed in January as noted in “Modern Casting”.

I have always been very impressed with the CIME furnace and the company itself, however during and after the installation I learned much more about both the CIME furnace and its manufacturer. Even more than before, I now have the utmost respect for the principles and designs of this equipment. There is some information on the Industrial Revolution Ltd web site regarding the CIME furnace with additional updates to come in the near future.

During the installation phase of the CIME furnace at TKW one of the odd and humours incidents occurred when Ing. Introna (Engineer GainPiero Introna who we call GP here in North America due to pronunciation issues of his real name, please note, there is no relation of GainPiero to the jeep driving, guinea pig on “Hammy Hamster” the popular 80’s kids TV show) from CIME was in Tennessee to discuss installation details. LTCG was sitting across from GP and my self and asked in a voice precisely reminiscant the comedy star “GP what got you into the furnace industry”. GP looked at me with the look I get when he does not under stand. I repeated to GP “what got you into the furnace industry” in my Canadian / Michigan voice. GP, now giving me his look of understanding, in his Italian accent then says “I graduated from university and started to work for a refractory company” LTCG reiterated with the same confused look GP gave me, prompting me to repeat, “He graduated from University and started to work for a refractory company” The conversation continued along the same lines for several minutes. All parties speaking English with the Canadian translating English between the two of them. I am now an official translator for southern USA English and Italian accent English. Perhaps I can broaden my resume and find work at the UN translating critical information between world leaders using apparently universal Canadian English.