INDIANAPOLIS—The Association for Rubber Products Manufacturers has conducted the first of two annual domestic hose technical committee meetings to protect U.S. rubber hose and belt standards monitoring and governance.
About 30 people participated in the March 25 event in San Antonio and addressed two issues—revision of an industry publication and the hose manufacturer's colored identification code list.
"One of the main items addressed was the progress on the updating of the hose handbook," said Richard Batzer, ARPM hose technical coordinator. "We made some decisions, and we are now sending these items out for review to select individuals to get them ready for publication."
Batzer said preparing the handbook is a major effort, since the previous publication's content is insufficient.
"There is a significant amount of table reformation. We're nearly finished with eight chapters with three remaining," he said.
These codes in the colored yarn are used to identify the hose manufacturer and are placed under the reinforcement so they can be identified in the event the cover is destroyed.
"These codes are basically for liability protection," Batzer said. "We found that some of these codes have been issued for 50 or 60 years. A lot of the companies on the old list are out of business or have merged with other companies. Our job is to identify who on the list is active and take out the color codes that are obsolete."
The next domestic technical committee meeting this year will take place in Cincinnati in September. The two domestic committee meetings help the ARPM committee prepare for the international conference that will be in fall in Bali, Indonesia.