Johnson Screens designs and manufactures industrial and commercial screens for more applications in more markets than any other organisation in the world
With its 100-year history, customers depend on Johnson Screens to create effective and cost-conscious solutions for problems across a range of industries, including architectural, food processing, general industrial, petrochemical processing, and water intake, treatment and monitoring.
The company designs and manufactures industrial and commercial screens for more applications in more markets than any other organisation in the world.
Applications engineer Michael Ekholm manages projects ranging from keeping drinking water clear of contaminants to filtering sugar and purifying oil and gas supplies.
Ekholm uses Mathcad on a daily basis to design, test and document new projects, collaborate with teams and create applications used around the globe.
Part of Mike's job is to work with public water supplies to create applications for keeping debris and aquatic life out of drinking water.
To do this effectively, Johnson Screens pioneered a passive intake screen system that eliminated moving parts and represented a breakthrough in surface water withdrawal.
This unique approach removes common problems such as heavy debris plugging an open system or the destruction of fish related to using the traditional complex, moving screens.
By reforming the water intake mechanisms, Johnson Screens creates highly efficient intake systems and fish diversion screens without the potential for mechanical failure.
Presenting official calculations that have been certified as accurate with the stamp of a professional engineer is a requirement for the water process industry, and in most of Johnson's other markets as well.
The accuracy and presentation quality of the technical information that a calculation tool provides can define a company's success. Ekholm uses Mathsoft's Mathcad as his "daily desktop destination," leveraging its range of integrated tools to tackle anything from everyday calculations to the tracking of major projects with colleagues.
Mathcad enables Ekholm to maintain control of a single project without having to move between many applications, ensuring a high quality of data that cannot be compromised with conversions.
Mathcad's intuitive 'live whiteboard' style of mathematical notation and calculation means Ekholm can compute solutions as fast as he can type in equations.
This is critical to Ekholm because it saves him time.
With Mathcad, he is able to quickly map out a design and test its abilities, making adjustments along the way that seamlessly re-calculate the design applications.
"We receive many requests for projects-large and small-every day," said Ekholm.
"It's rare that I get to work on only one design at a time, making it essential that I have a tool that provides the flexibility and intelligence to track my calculations and share my work with my colleagues." Team collaboration is extremely important to Ekholm, who often manages multiple projects with his peers.
Mathcad lets him document, track and share his work, ensuring consistency during a project and the freedom for him and his colleagues to work at their own pace.
"I depend on Mathcad to be my tool for everything I do during the design process, from planning and executing our technical calculations to reporting." By using Mathcad, Ekholm is able to simplify the design process to create, test and publish his projects.
Ekholm appreciates Mathcad's capability to interface and integrate his calculations with his other desktop tools, such as TK Solver, to gain the advantage of timesaving and a seamless design process.
Ekholm uses Mathcad's reporting features to hide proprietary work and calculations when sharing documents outside of the office and making professional presentations to his clients.
"We conduct all team calculation work and reporting with Mathcad," Ekholm said.
"It makes the process so streamlined that I can't imagine work without it." Mathcad is supplied and supported in the UK and Ireland by Adept Scientific.
