Appropriate Technology, Inc

Appropriate Technology was incorporated on July 15, 1992 in Florida to provide a business framework for providing product design and engineering services to industry and the general public. In the nearly 30 years of operation we have been heavily involved with the design of high pressure compressor systems for the fire market. We have also designed products for the medical field and provided engineering support for the safety department of a major hospital.

Our director of technology is a Professional Engineer licensed in Florida and has 60 years of diverse experience in nuclear power plant design and operation, high pressure compressor systems design, medical systems safety research and a host of specialty product development. Equipment reliability and maintainability in these fields is of paramount importance. Maintainability is in large measure a function of how well the product is documented. The compressor system we are offering will easily pass the most demanding standards of the nuclear industry and all of the applicable regulating agencies.

Origin of the concept 'Appropriate Technology'

The origin of the term “Appropriate Technology” can be traced to an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act in 1975. The amendment provides for $20 million dollars to be spent over three years to promote technology appropriate to developing countries and instructs the Agency for International Development (AID) to draw up a proposal to spent the money and involve the private sector in the project. Appropriate Technology International (ATI) is the sub-agency created to pursue the Congressional mandate.

ATI was an effort to reshuffle US aid priorities in the direction of the voguish “small is beautiful” approach. That viewpoint holds that what the rich of the world have been giving or selling to the poor reflects their own values and needs rather than those of the people they are trying to help. Thus, what US aid programs had dispensed for 25 years before the enactment of the ATI had been capital and energy “guzzling”, managerially complex and, above all, not labor intensive, despite the fact that receiving countries like Jamaica, Zaire and Indonesia had unemployment rates hovering around 30 to 40 percent.

So, what would be appropriate? Well, the marvel of a great idea is its capacity to appear self-evident. The high priest of “small is beautiful,” E. F. Schumacher, advanced the notion that the proper way to deal with man and technology in the development process is to reverse the capital-energy-labor predicament by designing and supporting aid projects that generate jobs through methods of production that have developed naturally. Don’t send the 125 horsepower tractors that are the heart of the American production system to countries like Egypt, Bangladesh and Taiwan where the average farm is only two to three acres. They are too big, too expensive—in a word, “inappropriate.” The entrepreneurs who farm these tiny plots needed improved technology no less than American farmers, but they needed machines and tools appropriate to their tiny farms and cheap enough to fit their low incomes.

As a Regional Marketing Manager for a nuclear industry think tank one of my most important assignments was to seek out and recognize emerging trends in government spending on technology. The paragraphs above were gleaned from an article in the June 11, 1977 issue of the New Republic. The article stimulated a more encompassing or global interpretation of how to design products…instead of seeking the latest high tech solution to a design problem or some low tech kludge a designer should make a considerable effort to identify the solution that is most appropriate when all physical and financial factors are considered. It is one of the most basic mission elements of Appropriate Technology, Inc., that is, to always seek the most appropriate technology to solve design problems unless otherwise specified by a client.

The use of Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC's) in high pressure breathing air compressor control is an example of inappropriate use of high technology. These machines are either ON or OFF. They typically have an ON/OFF Switch, an Emergency Stop Switch, a pre-set pressure switch that starts and stops the machine based on receiver pressure, an oil pressure switch that shuts down the machine if the oil pressure drops below a preset limit, a carbon monoxide monitor that shuts down the machine on high CO in the air stream, and a bimetal temperature switch that shuts the machine down if the compressor block rises above a preset temperature limit. This approach to machine control is called the “electro-mechanical” approach. Historically electro-mechanical controls are less expensive than PLC based systems, easy to trouble shoot, and easy to repair. PLC control systems must be programmed by high paid ($150.00/hr.) specialist and many of the components required in an electro-mechanical approach must be used in a PLC based control system also. Another damming characteristic of PLC programmers is that they will not trouble shoot someone else's work…they throw it out and start all over with new programming according to their quirks.

The implementation of machine health diagnostics is the only driving force for implementing anything other than an electro-mechanical system. An embedded computer system which is programmed in a low embedded system level language such as C++ is the best solution for a control and instrumentation system with diagnostics. Virtually any computer science student can program in this language so machine developers are not beholding (hostage) to the global control system component monopolies.

Samuel M. Baggett, BSME, BSNE, PE (60 years of diverse machine and system design)

Fire Market Business Opportunity

The Appropriate Technology high pressure breathing air compressor system is a highly developed and documented product that has industrial and fire market appeal. If you or your company is interested in manufacturing and marketing this product please call Sam Baggett at 352-362-4712. Minimum investment requirements include purchase of the prototype machine and a fee to transfer the considerable design data base. A royalty arrangement may be negotiated to recover our developmental costs. Reasonable consulting fees can be negotiated for assistance in addressing fire and industrial market opportunities.