Greene Tweed Innovation Award Winner Spotlight: Smart Seals – Revolutionizing Maintenance
By: Pragati Verma
Envision a future where O-rings could communicate with users in real time, giving information about their own performance, eliminating unscheduled maintenance. This exciting innovation is around the corner, thanks to Greene Tweed’s groundbreaking ‘Smart Seals’ technology.
Recognizing this outstanding achievement, Greene Tweed (GT) awarded our prestigious Innovation Award, which spotlights and rewards exceptional efforts to push the boundaries of innovation and collaboration, to the six-member team driving this effort: Peri Periyasamy- Senior Scientist; Nick Piacente- Product Manager, Chemraz®; Carmen Quartapella, Senior Engineer – Design and Analysis; Peter Cheng, Scientist; Gary Reichl- Senior Research Engineer; and Brian Lynn, Senior Technician.
On the heels of a special event, where Chairman Allon Bloch and CEO Magen Buterbaugh presented the award, we sat down with the winning team to learn about the innovative technology and GT’s robust technology development program.
Congratulations on the Innovation Award, honoring your efforts in developing smart seals. Please tell us about your achievement.
Nick: Greene Tweed has been developing predictive maintenance technology for O-rings, and we’ve recently completed the construction of a product demonstrator, showing how the technology can be used in application. GT’s decades-long experience of analyzing how seals perform in the field put us in a unique position to develop the technology.
Carmen: We have been recognized for creating what is known inside the organization as the Smart Seal. It is the beginning of the digital transformation of seals that GT is pioneering. The technology is exciting, offering many value propositions and far-reaching implications.
Peri: Smart Seals started under GT’s Breakthrough Technology group. Since I joined the company, we’ve worked to identify and evaluate new sensing technology options, to select the best solutions that are most practical and effective at enabling predictive maintenance.
Brian: This was the first project I worked on as an ATG Technician. In this project, we evaluated about 40 fillers to achieve a highly desirable compound.
Gary: I worked with Eugene Gurevich and Brian Lynn to develop formulations tailored to meet difficult requirements. This formulation work was very important for the development of smart seals.
What does this award mean to you personally and professionally?
Carmen: For me, the award signifies belief. One of the biggest rewards for me is the belief that this is a part of the future of GT. Equally encouraging is our customers’ belief that GT is a leader in this space, and that this technology will be a key part of the future for sealing. Creativity, Persistence, Collaboration, R&D, Timing, and Market Conditions are necessary to have a chance to be successful at breakthrough technology, and so is corporate courage.
Peter: While I have only been a part of the Smart Seals team for one year, it is amazing to look back at how much has been accomplished during this one year. Ranging from prototype development, implementation discussions, improved testing methods, product development, and many other accomplishments, we have truly taken giant steps forward with the Smart Seals Platform. Having the Innovation Award go to the whole team shows how everyone was necessary to be where we are now with Smart Seals.
Nick: The nomination and the award reaffirm Greene Tweed’s commitment to innovation and out-of-the-box thinking to help us achieve our long-term goals. It means a lot to me that Greene Tweed acknowledges the power of longer-term innovation as part of our portfolio to grow and achieve our goals.
How would you describe the impact of your innovation?
Carmen: We have some ongoing projects for SMART seals that are very exciting and promise to give us real breakthroughs. We have built things that we did not know would be possible, and solved problems that we were afraid of. Who would have thought that O-rings could be more than a seal, and you could communicate with your O-rings in real time! But it is happening, and we are leading this digital transformation.
Peri: Though new technology development initiatives do not bring revenue in the near term, I am extremely happy that our CEO and Chairman have recognized that investing in Breakthrough Technology is absolutely necessary. I am optimistic that GT’s innovation team consisting of scientists, engineers, operations, sales, and marketing team will introduce new smart seals to the market soon for lifetime monitoring and tracking of seals. This will continuously differentiate GT as the technology leader and preferred supplier.
Do you want to acknowledge the role of any collaborators besides your core team?
Nick, Peri, Carmen: We asked for a lot of help from team members outside the core group by holding brainstorming sessions that helped us overcome technical roadblocks, especially Thyag Sadasiwan, General Manager – Chemraz; Bret Neese, Senior Technology Manager; Elizabeth Sassano, Director, Strategy and Business Development; Glenn Doell, retired Senior Technology Manager; Reza Golzarian, Global Product Manager - Chemraz; and Ronald Campbell, Senior Technical Advisor.
What do you think is the path forward for smart seals?
Carmen: This is just the beginning. AI is here, and we have a chance to empower customers with our technology.
Peri: I envision working to develop Smart Seals into a GT product that will be introduced soon.
Check out Our Previous Award Winners: