Do rattling cylinders drive your drivers crazy?
By Mike Moran
Updated Tue January 19, 2010
ST. LOUIS - Responsive Respiratory has come up with something that it appears the HME industry has never seen before: the Cylinder Silencer.
"We make carts and racks, and the biggest complaint when we do surveys and talk to our customers is: 'Man. I wish there was a way to stop that rattling. It's just so noisy. My drivers are never happy about it,'" said Tom Bannon, Responsive Respiratory's president.
That's where the Cylinder Silencer, which debuted in December, comes in. The foam pads insert easily between the transport rack and cylinders. This reduces the jostling and clanking of tanks during patient deliveries.
Marketing Manager Sara Lippold jokes that she conceived of the Cylinder Silencer in a "flash of brilliance." After buying some storage containers for her home, she noticed that a foam grid kept the containers from getting stuck inside each other.
"As I looked at it, the grid pattern on our racks made me think: 'I've seen that grid pattern somewhere else,' and it was on the spacers that came with those containers," she said.
A pack of 10 Cylinder Silencers sells for $14.95, and while the product may look simple, it wasn't simple to make.
"It went through five generations," Bannon said. "There were density and thickness issues, and we needed something that wouldn't flake. What it does is--you push it in and it expands and forces the cylinders against the wall (of the rack). It took a while to get it right."
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