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In today’s episode of The Fire Protection Podcast, Drew sits down with Jim McHugh, president of AGF Manufacturing, to talk through the latest trends in sprinkler manufacturing, innovations in sprinkler systems and hardware, and the impact of these changes on ITM processes.
They also discuss the high volume of acquisitions taking place in fire protection and what that means for the future. “I think we’re a decade behind what was already done in the plumbing, electrical, and HVAC industry…But I think it offers amazing opportunities for generational change, and there’s a lot of that going on right now,” McHugh explains.
McHugh shares about other key trends in the industry, including retrofitting, code compliance and enforcement, shifts in manufacturing standards and processes, remote inspections, and the future growth of the fire protection industry.
Watch or listen to this episode for an inside look at the manufacturing side of business in fire protection, and how it overlaps with ITM.
Timecodes:
- 00:00 – Introduction
- 03:58 – Jim’s Background & Philosophy
- 08:46 – Private Equity Investments in Fire Protection
- 14:11 – Retrofitting, Code Enforcement, & AHJs
- 23:12 – NFPA 915 & Remote Inspections
- 28:41 – Evolution of Sprinkler Tech & Connectivity
- 38:19 – Innovations in Sprinkler Hardware
- 45:08 – Simplifying ITM Processes
- 48:32 – Uniformity Across Fire Protection
- 51:50 – Wrap-Up
Full Transcript
Drew Slocum:
This is episode 70 of The Fire Protection Podcast powered by Inspect Point. Today, my guest is Jim McHugh with AGF Manufacturing. Obviously, if you’re in the sprinkler industry, you know what AGF does—like test and drains, anything kind of drain-wise on the sprinkler systems. They have some, obviously, innovative ideas that are always forward thinking.
Jim sits on some NFPA codes with me, as well as some others, and is heavily involved in the trade associations getting new products and ideas out there. So, I’ve known Jim for a long time and he’s been wanting to come on the podcast, so we got him on, talking everything in the sprinkler industry.
So, thanks again for Jim popping on and appreciate all the listenership out there. Onto the podcast. Thanks.
All right. We are live here on The Fire Protection Podcast. Jim, how’re you doing?
Jim McHugh:
I’m doing good, Drew. Good to see you again.
Drew Slocum:
I’ll take this background off, but, you know, it’s going to be a good season, I feel like.
Jim McHugh:
Great. That’s good. This is starting off a little rocky. I can’t say I’m really enthused after the first couple of games. We’re winning by the skin of our teeth. The New Orleans game was scary.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, that was…Wait, wait, I didn’t watch that one. We didn’t get it up here in New England, unfortunately, but I did watch that Monday Night game.
Jim McHugh:
Basically, we stole a win out of the jaws of a loss because the last couple of minutes I was convinced that we were going to lose. But we ended up winning just in the last minute and a half of the game. It was unbelievable. But this is what happens when you send over 3,000 Eagles fans down to the big and easy. This is what happens.
Drew Slocum:
Oh, could you hear where Philadelphia was in attendance, it sounds like?
Jim McHugh:
Yeah, and actually, I did it a couple of years ago. I went down for one of the games down in New Orleans, and there’s a fantastic travel group called the Green Legion. And it’s one of the, probably, if not the largest, it’s one of the largest traveling groups in the NFL that organizes this collection of fans, it goes anywhere from three to 5,000 fans, fly to the away games. Pick two or three of the fun cities—I’ve done New Orleans, Jacksonville, we’ve done the Cowboys. And New Orleans is certainly a special place to go to because of going to Bourbon Street and because of the Dome. And New Orleans is a great place to go party. The game itself, the dome itself, is a piece of trash.
Drew Slocum:
Oh, is it?
Jim McHugh:
It’s a terrible facility to go see a game in because of the way—the Dome is old. And the way the second level sits out over the first level. If you’re sitting in that first level, the way when they send up a high pass or a kick, you basically see the ball go up in the air and then you lose the ball, and then you don’t see the ball till the ball comes down because the second level sits out so far over the first level. It’s got terrible optics, but it’s fine. It’s a great time where you party your ass off.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, yeah, it’s a good city. I was there for a NAFED conference this year and I didn’t have the…it is a great city. It was just, the city’s dealing with issues, just safety and whatever. Great, great conference though. The fire extinguisher distributors.
But anyway, Jim, first time on the podcast. I know we’ve been friends, industry friends, for a long time. Let’s tell the audience who you are and we’ll go from there.
Jim McHugh:
I’m Jim McHugh. I work for a company called AGF Manufacturing. We make specialty products for wet and dry fire sprinkler systems. We’ve been around since the mid ‘80s. Our primary focus, started in the business in 1986, was a product called TESTanDRAIN, an inspectors’ test valve widely used around the world now on wet systems.
And, over the years, we’ve developed many unique products such as…we now provide the industry with a product called PURGEnVENT, which is the industry’s leading air vent for an air maintenance device to get air out of wet systems.
We make another product line called COLLECTanDRAIN, which is used on all dry and pre-action systems to collect water and be preventative maintenance on dry systems and pre-action systems. We make a lot of relief valves for wet systems.
So again, we make a lot of the specialty products for the fire sprinkler industry.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, and there’s obviously, heavily tied to the inspecting and testing side, right? And making sure the systems…traditionally, I feel like the industry, they care a lot about the install. But more of the focus in the last 10 or so years has been on the maintenance side, making sure those systems are working properly. And again, the industry seems to have kind of shifted that way, which is a great thing because…
Jim McHugh:
If you think about it, there was an explosive growth in the fire sprinkler installation from the tail end of the ‘70s into the ‘80s when the sprinkler industry really saw a dynamic growth. And it has continued that way. I mean, we really can’t fault the growth curve. Certainly, it’s not a J hook, but it’s been a steady growth because of code changes and adoptions across the country.
Well, with that many sprinkler installations across all different construction methodologies, well that’s going to also come with a lot of inspection, test, and maintenance requirements. And I think one of the unique factors of our industry is people have low expectations when it comes to plumbing and HVAC…plumbing lasts five years, HVAC lasts 10 to 15 years. Well, we expect fire sprinkler systems to last 25 to 50 years and respond perfectly the first time, every time.
Well, if you have that inherent expectation that everything’s going to work perfectly the first time every time, well, you better be doing some very good maintenance on it. And I think our goal with our company products is to make that life as easy as possible.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, and it’s tough when you’re bidding a project, or even the owner’s wanting to follow the code, put a fire sprinkler system and a fire suppression system in, they’re looking at the cost of the install. They’re not looking at the overall maintenance at the time. So, they may be just trying to get by with getting a C/O and getting it in there, but they might not be looking at the overall long-term cost of the system. Right.
Jim McHugh:
Yeah, the penny wise pound foolish mentality. The shortsighted person says, “Well, I’m going to save a penny here.” You’re going to pay a lot of dollars later. And it’s an unfortunate…it’s poor planning for the long term. You and I both have had experience out in the field where we’ve seen guys that have made poor decisions on either the product choice, they’ve gone with a lower cost product on the first round of install, or they’ve gone with say, a poor design that they often, that I think affects people.
Sometimes the most expensive cost is a not well-thought-out design. And that then inherently costs them longer term money over the lifespan because they’re going to pay over and over and over again for that design flaw and fixes.
Drew Slocum:
And that’s probably a variety of industries, but especially fire because it’s unseen a lot of times. And you got water behind the wall.
So you’ve been, obviously, in the industry for quite some time. What have you seen over the last, I guess 20 to 10 to five—and kind of where we’re at? Have you seen any trends happening with the industry?
Jim McHugh:
I mean, I think if we looked back, I think in the very short-term, I think the most talked about trend going on right now has been the consolidation, the private equity firms coming into the industry and buying up and consolidating contractors as well as manufacturers. So, there are now private equity firms that have consolidated contractors that the contracting firms are now larger than the largest manufacturing firms.
You have private equity firms that have consolidated manufacturing firms that now encompass all factors of manufacturing. There used to be, well, “I manufactured a product and then I sold it to a company that wholesaled the product, sold it to a person who installed the product.” Well, now you’ve got a private equity firm that actually is a stakeholder in every factor. They own the manufacturer, they own the wholesaler, they own the design capacity of it. I wonder, at what point will the private equity firms all go out and play golf together and say, “Okay, well let’s all join hands.”
I think that’ll be an interesting thing. To be honest with you, it’s almost hard to keep pace with the, I would say there’s probably eight or 10 private equity firms that are consolidating the contracting group, and I wonder what’s going on with them. At what point do the mathematics with that group, do they start looking at each other? Or they’ve gotten so big that they’re going public or do they start buying up each other? What are they doing?
And then, now, I don’t know. I mean, I’m in my 50s, so I’ve gone through some cycles in this fire sprinkler industry. But I’ve talked to some people that are older than me and they said everything’s cyclical. And if you look back when there was some consolidation prior, like in the ‘70s and ‘80s, there was some consolidation. And when that happened priorly, when that happened prior, then it blew apart, the consolidation blew apart. And that kind of whole second round of independent contractors came out of that. So, maybe we are on the verge of that happening again. Who knows?
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, if you look back at that, with the Grinnell days and the Cintas, even back then, there’s just more code compliance now. So, I don’t think it’s going to repeat itself. People say it’s cyclical. The thing is, we’ve only seen this once or twice, so I don’t know if you can call it a cycle. It’s going to be something new.
And there’s a lot of benefits to the mergers and acquisitions happening from, obviously, a lot of it being those companies that worked or those business owners that have worked hard over the years and finally getting a nice exit and all that. And I think there’s a great part for those workers too, but there’s negative parts too, and you just got to figure those out. And you said there’s eight PE firms? I think there’s over 30.
Jim McHugh:
Oh no. I think in the…
Drew Slocum:
Oh, the main ones, right?
Jim McHugh:
In the contractor consolidation, I think there’s a primary group of 10 to 15 buying up the contractors, and there’s about another five buying up the manufacturers. So all in, it’s about 15 that are taking a primary role that have targeted our industry. And I think we’re a decade behind what was already done in the plumbing, electrical, and HVAC industry. I mean, this was already done 10, 15 years ago in the other mechanical trades. They’re just getting around our industry now.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, those are still, they’re not as fragmented, but they’re still fragmented. But there’s consolidation with Comfort Systems, right? That’s big in HVAC and plumbing. They went public, right? And they are all focused on the recurring revenue. Now, install’s a big piece of their business still because of the higher revenue, but it’s lower margin and the recurring side is just been…that’s the golden goose.
Jim McHugh:
But I think, as you said, it offers amazing opportunities for the generational change, and there’s a lot of that going on right now, and I think that’s a fantastic opportunity. But it’s a fascinating thing to watch. I mean, the numbers that are getting sent out are phenomenal. So that’s one trend.
If you jump back, what are some of the other trends that I’ve seen? I think the retrofit trend is something that is becoming more talked about. That’s something that we really have to work on as an industry. The retrofit rules—more and more cities have adopted some retrofit rules, and I think that’s something where we need to be more aggressive in the code world to go after more high-rise retrofit, more diverse occupancy retrofit rules. I think that’s something.
I’m not saying I’m purposely skeptical, but everybody always talks about residential, residential, residential. I get that, but I would personally think we would get more bang for our buck if we just focused on the retrofit, on the high-rise in the commercial sector. That would be one area.
Then actually, I think one of the things that doesn’t get done a lot is just code compliance on NFPA 25. Just, I think about the amount of buildings that do not actually get inspected and held accountable, that don’t get done. They don’t get inspected, they aren’t compliant, they aren’t kept up to date. There isn’t code enforcement.
I think that’s one of the biggest…and my concern is, and it’s not just because I have a dog in the hunt, that I make products to facilitate that? That’s got nothing to do with it. I think that’s what is an ever-growing Achilles heel our industry will have, and it will only get worse the more systems we have out there. As we have more systems installed, we have more exposure of a problem happening. And if we don’t have more systems inspected and maintained, something bad’s going to happen that’s going to hurt our reputation. And if we don’t have more code enforcement, that always concerns me.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, I think that is a concern, but I think it’s trending the other way. I think these deficiencies are getting written up. If companies are focusing more on the recurring revenue, they’re going to be doing inspections. And what’s happening in the AHJ world, in the fire prevention and fire marshal world, is they’re bringing in these systems, these compliance software systems where, if you have 2,000 buildings in a jurisdiction, all that’s being housed in a digital format where…they enact a law or it’s not a law, I forget how they enact it. But they put it into the code where, hey, any building, commercial building, has to put all these deficiencies into this system.
So, I do think overall there are more deficiencies written up and fixed. Now, is that happening in all jurisdictions? No. And are the deficiencies being written up in, again, it’d be interesting to see that data overall, but there are thousands of AHJs throughout the country that are utilizing these platforms now, and I believe inspections are much better than they were five years ago.
Jim McHugh:
Oh, I agree with that. I think they are monumentally better than they were, but I’m saying the speed in which we’re putting in systems.
Drew Slocum:
Oh, right.
Jim McHugh:
I’m saying—I’m just looking at it as…the speed in which we’re putting in systems and the speed in which we’re inspecting systems is not keeping pace with the speed in which we’re enforcing the system. So that’s my concern is, I don’t think…that there isn’t enough teeth in the inspection side of stuff.
I would always wish to this day, I always wish that if they did inspections and you found certain deficiencies, there isn’t a next step. There isn’t a hold the feet to the fire, to the building, to get it corrected.
We both know we, we’ve both seen situations where someone finds a deficiency in a sprinkler system and it’s a life safety system, and that person goes in and does the inspection, they cite the deficiency, and then they come back the next year and they cite the exact same deficiency. And then the third year, they cite the exact same deficiency. I’ve been in buildings and seen a stack of yellow tags. They’ve cited the damn thing how many times?
That building owner is like, yeah, whatever. And then maybe at some point they just pick a different contractor and start all over again.
Drew Slocum:
The platforms though, they do help with that. Yeah, it’s not perfect, but I do think, because of these platforms, they’re being reported to the AHJ digitally versus having an actual AHJ inspector go out, see that yellow tag. So it’s being digitally done. There’s actually…a letter automatically goes out to that building owner saying, “Hey, you’ve got these five deficiencies. They better be corrected in 30 days.”
So, the rollout of that’s got to be correct, and that probably hasn’t happened everywhere, but I think we’re on the right track.
Drew Slocum:
I think it’s a lot better than it was five, 10 years ago.
Jim McHugh:
I agree with that, I think it’s monumentally better. I wish we were taking another proactive step as an industry. To me, I think the sprinkler industry missed a step. I think should have—we, the sprinkler industry, should have walked arm-and-arm a little bit closer with the software side of ITM and said, “Hey, we should walk with the service side and the ITM side and the AHJ and go, what can we do for you that will help you enforce this faster and better?”
That to me was a window that was missed. Because I think you could have said, well, we’re going to change some of the rules. Well, maybe there needs to be some other, how you do your certificate of occupancy, or change your certificate of occupancy. Or how you do your annual insurance audits need to be adjusted, how you do your…things like that. That’s not getting, to the best of my knowledge, you’re not hearing that on the insurance level discussion from an auditing standpoint, and that’s not even getting discussed. I think there’s a mix that’s not…it’s a window that’s not getting opened yet.
Drew Slocum:
Interestingly enough, the manufacturers, you guys are a manufacturer, but you have…your perspective, I think, is a lot different than the big large conglomerates and whatever out there. Which, hey, if you got…do you care about the deficiency repairs on a specific building or do you care about the warehouse that’s going up with a million dollars worth of material? That’s kind of the focus of it. After that warehouse is up, do they care about replacing a few heads or some valves here or there? So, I understand the capitalist side of it.
Jim McHugh:
Right. That’s an area that I think is…a focus area that I think we’re going to have to look at improving in the future is, I mean, I think for the future growth of our industry, I don’t know if this is the right terminology. I think the sprinkler industry is going to cap out in a little bit and we’re going to be just incredibly tied to construction.
Construction goes up, we’re going to go up, construction goes down, we’re going to go down. Right now, we can grow asymmetrical to construction because code enforcement can affect that because we’re not in every facet of construction. So we can be slightly different. But, if we ever get to the point that we’re point to point with points of construction, then we’re going to grow exactly like they do.
Drew Slocum:
I think it’s like that now. When I worked for Tyco…
Jim McHugh:
We’re very close to it.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah. When I worked for Tyco and Viking, whatever the economy was in and the building cycle, that’s what the year looked like—overall. What did keep the lights on were the recurring revenue in the inspection and fit outs and stuff like that. Codes…
Jim McHugh:
So, then you start back and going, okay, well then if you want that extra, it’s got to be ITM on the one end or it’s got to be retrofit on the stuff we didn’t do. Those are your extras.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah. Yeah. With the tie of hardware and the software side…and there’s been talk of IoT and NFPA 915 with remote inspection. They haven’t had the “and testing” yet. I know they were talking about it, but you have any thoughts there? I know you sit on 915 with me, right?
Jim McHugh:
I’m on 915 as an alternate, actually for Joe Scibetta…
Drew Slocum:
Oh, nice.
Jim McHugh:
I think when 915 first came out, there was a lot of concern that it was…not anti-labor, but it was, “Hey, this thing is just going to replace labor. It’s going to be all things electronic. And if you could do it electronically, you can’t do it with this.”
And I said, so there are genuinely—my concerns in reading it…I think I showed somebody a report. I said, when 915 came out, the draft of it was 12 pages. NFPA 13 is 1,297 pages. So let’s put it into perspective. NFPA 25 is 783 pages. So 915 is a pamphlet.
I get a little concerned in 915 on who owns the data, who can manipulate the data and data confidentiality. I threw an example at a group. I have a camera in my stairwell to record the data of the gauges. It’s a simple camera. It’s at the end of a gauge, but that camera happens to record the mistress running down the stairs. Can I grab that data in a case, in a law case? So, I get a little concerned about privacy issues and the use of electronic devices, and that our industry, because of our use of electronics, will get sucked into some other issues. That’s always a concern.
Right out of the gate, I always get concerned when you say, “Hey, we’re going to use electronic capacity to replace manual labor.” I don’t like the concept of that because I don’t know who’s turning the button. Because I could have a completely unqualified person reading the data or manipulating the switch, and I don’t like that. So I liked the compromise that was put in NFPA 13 and 25 for the electronic section where it said: every third time in cycle of an electronic test, you have to do it manually. I thought that was good.
And then with 915, it’s more an overall, as I said, a pamphlet saying, look, this is just how you’re going to manipulate the data. We’re going to collect this data, qualified people have to utilize the data, it has to be done in a proprietary nature, it has to be in a secure nature. It can’t be used inappropriately. Very basic stuff.
So, I think that calmed a lot of people’s fear about it, that it was not an anti-labor functionality. It does have some concerns, but a lot of them are addressed in other areas of the code. I mean, 915 spends a lot of time referencing all of the other sections of NFPA.
Drew Slocum:
And it’s brought into the other standards. Essentially, it’s just a template for the AHJ to be able to allow it and do their own, right? I had, the last podcast, I had Andreas from First Due, which is an AHJ platform. It’s for fire prevention and their emergency response and stuff like that.
But they have a remote inspection piece right in their platform. So, when they’re doing the initial walkthrough or their fire inspectors are out in their field, they have the ability to do a remote inspection. But that’s up to the AHJ if they want to allow that. So the product is actually out there with, essentially for 915. It’s just not on the…there’s a lot of ITM people and fire protection system people on 915 and how is that going to work? I think, it is only going to make systems better, in my opinion. But you’re right, it’s got to be…
Jim McHugh:
If I’m a busy building office, and you’re telling me…I’m the city of Las Vegas and I’ve got hundreds and hundreds of properties that I got to get out there and inspect, and you’re telling me, yeah, I got five building inspectors and I got to do 26 building sites a day, that’s impossible. I’m going to have to accept some electronic results. I’m going to have to allow these guys on site to use cell phones to do some building inspections. I’m going to have to use potentially video from the site versus a physical person on the site. I get it. I’m certainly willing to agree to some of that. There just has to be some mutual give and take on the overabundant use of technology.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, so that’s remote inspection. Any, and I guess IoT fits into this a little bit with hardware being paired with software. Have you seen anything…I know there’s been some products out there, but it seems like they didn’t have any…that was a few years back. So have you seen anything more on the sprinkler side? I know you guys are working on something too, right?
Jim McHugh:
I think all of us, all the manufacturers are all taking a look at, okay, how can we either introduce new products, introduce new communicated methodologies within our existing products, What can we do that will make our products work in this format?
I think there’s good and bad of it. Either you can add automation to your product—I mean, we introduced a product in 1996 based off a contractor request. I mean, we make a manual valve. Our inspectors’ test valve, by its verbal nature, it’s an inspector’s test valve. It’s a handle. You turn the handle. We have an inspector come to us and say, “I need to locate this valve in a facility that once it is installed will be very, very inconvenient to get to its physical installation.” They were going to need to put it somewhere that once it’s in there, they can’t really get into conveniently.
So he says, would you mind, can you make a version of this product that will still be manually, but can we also add a remote control feature to it so that I could from the fire panel, activate a flow of water through it. So we introduced our remote test product. We still had the manual test and drain on one side of the valve, but we added a solenoid to the end adapter to allow for the remote activation of the product. And we introduced that in 1996 as a kit that was available on our products. So the concept of adding automation to products, I think has been out there since the ‘90s.
Now you’re seeing, besides automation, you want data communication abilities because data is what a lot of the people want. People like yourself, from the inspection side of the industry, you live on data, data is going to tell you—it helps with the inspection, it helps with system maintenance. I want to know temperature and pressure at all times. I want to know all these different facets of the system.
So the device manufacturers like myself, we’re all now going, okay, we make the products that are on the system and how do we make those products communicate? So, an example at the recent AFSA show in Denver, Colorado, which is a fantastic show, well-attended by contractors. We introduced a product called HEF Connect, which it’s our dry system products that they’re low point drains. We make heated low point drains. We make self-draining low point drains, low point drains that will literally seal themselves closed if they were to break, all different versions of low point drains. We made a little adapter on every one of our products—now has dry contacts, with the concept that if you wanted, you would have the ability to, on an individual basis, the low point drain could contact you and say, “Hey, I’m full. Come empty me.”
Or it would tell you, it would give you some form of data point back. Then it’s up to you how you want to manipulate that data. Do you want the building management person to know that? Do you want the contractor to know that? Do you want the alarm company to know? I am not the judge of that. I think there’s a variety of different people that are all stakeholders there. As a manufacturer, my job is to give all of those different stakeholders the capacity to know that data.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, yeah. So the dry contacts are there. Do you still have to hook up a data communicator?
Jim McHugh:
So what we did is we made it so that it’s agnostic. We do offer, we have a little transmitter and a little receiver that we will offer. And in the transmitter and the receiver, they also have the connective ability to hook to a BMS or a fire panel of anyone’s choice.
So, you can buy ours if you’d like. And we made them very, very low cost so that…again, I’m not in that electronic side of the business. I am the manufacturer of the valves and the devices. I’m going to give you the products to then take that data and go anywhere you want or hook it to your electronic system, your inspection system, your BMS system, your fire panel system. I just need to make my products accessible to do that.
Drew Slocum:
Right, right. Man, you’re making my head…all the gears are turning in my head now.
Jim McHugh:
I think it’s the responsibility in the evolution—and we both know the evolution in the sprinkler industry is not fast. But whatever, it shouldn’t be. If we expect the system to last for 50 years, it can’t move overly quickly. It has to be tried and true. We have to work out the kinks.
I think it’s our responsibility as manufacturers to evolve, but to evolve at a responsible rate that we know we’re making the most robust products, that our technology that we’re going to use are going to survive the quality standards that we have in expectation. That’s one of my biggest concerns. We were talking about trends. I think that the industry as a whole, we have to be careful that some of the products coming into the fire sprinkler industry, like we’re seeing import products come into our industry, and I don’t have a problem with some of the import products. Some of it can be okay quality, but we also have to be careful that it’s not the same quality as some of the domestic products we’ve grown this industry on.
I’m a very proud domestic US manufacturer. I’ve made the reputation of our company making domestic products. People have come to become reliant on high quality domestic products: domestic steel, domestic bronze, domestically—not just assembled in America, made in America.
And then, if you all of a sudden start introducing lots and lots of import products, well what if those products start to fail? Okay, well maybe you’re not going to get a 50-year lifespan out of your sprinkler system. We’re going to start acting more like an HVAC system or a plumbing system. But our codes aren’t written to handle that. Our ITM’s not written to handle that. We’re just not prepared for that.
Drew Slocum:
I think that imports and all, even weirdly enough, it happens on the software side where there’s these startup companies and their support team is wherever. And it’s happened for a while, but you need—the more you are regionally located in a spot, and we’re global at this point, but the more you can be local, the better experience. And, I guess on the product side, it’s different, it’s obviously different. You buy that one time and then you kind of forget about it. But you guys have been that way for forever. So obviously there’s something to that, right?
Jim McHugh:
Right. But you just look and say, okay, I can put in a room—think about your Viking days when you’re out selling…you could go into a room and I could have 50 contractors and say, okay, by show of hands, how many of you have ever had a bad valve of my valve? And it was a rare hand went up. I know, to the day, every valve that was built. And that’s a concern I have with, somewhat the industry trend going forward, this commoditization of some of the products.
It’s a freight train that somewhat can’t be stopped. But it’s also an issue that we’re going to have to potentially adjust some of the ITM expectations because we may not see longevity in some of the products…because you may not see longevity. If we start, say we start changing some of the standards where we’re not using metals in some of the products and we start going to plastics, and I don’t have anything against plastic. I mean, Blaze Master is a phenomenon product. I don’t mean that…What if we were starting to substitute some of the components that have long-term been metal components and we start going, oh no, we’re okay using a plastic that wears less, that changes dynamics, stuff like that. I mean, can you imagine a plastic impeller on a pump?
Drew Slocum:
Oh God. No.
Jim McHugh:
But the HVAC industry went through that, the HVAC industry, and they went from metal impellers to plastic impellers, and they went from 20-year pumps to five-year pumps.
Drew Slocum:
Wow. Yeah. And that’s not. Right, it’s not as much life safety, it’s more comfort. So they could probably do that with some ease, but then it kind of gets purged out at some point.
Is there any other technologies you see out there that are, maybe not on the digital side, but on the sprinkler side…I’m kind of not in tune with the day-to-day on sprinkler technology. I know there’s always whatever new head you have or valve, but that really hasn’t, I feel like that hasn’t changed too much.
Jim McHugh:
I think that there’s a couple, there’s some new tooling technology and there’s some new corrosive protection technology. On the tooling technology—I’m not in the field, so I can’t speak a lot about the tooling technology. But I see products like Snap Drill and the Snap Groover, they’re coming over from Europe. They’re getting a lot of attention. They’re very creative. They’re just a really unique set of tools.
I actually just saw the new Milwaukee 18-volt portable groover, and I don’t know if you’ve even seen that thing. Basically it rolled it. You attach it to the piece of pipe and it just walks itself around the pipe. It takes about 40 revolutions to groove the pipe. I mean, it takes a while, but if you’re doing a retrofit repair job, it’s a groover that’s this big.
Drew Slocum:
That’s crazy.
Jim McHugh:
It’s crazy. And then you look at that snap drill device, I mean, when you watch that thing in action, it’s fantastic. It’s a phenomenal product. So from the tooling, what those tools can do, and how they do labor savings and how they protect the worker, how they make his job easier and faster, I think those are incredible tools. The Snap Drill and the Snap Groover, I mean, those guys have created incredible tools. I think for field tools, those are really cool.
I think probably the number one product, if I had to say what’s one of the newest, coolest things in the industry, I think General Air has introduced a corrosive protection game changer with that VpCI. I mean, I think you go back and everyone—what, you probably remember this 10, 15 years ago, everybody was like nitrogen, nitrogen, nitrogen. Not even that long ago.
Yeah, nitrogen has a marketer, and I understand it, but I think the thing that people didn’t talk about with nitrogen was, well, nitrogen has a cost and nitrogen has a maintenance that nobody really talked about, and nitrogen has a lifespan. So people would be like, oh yeah, yeah, it’s going to cost you more. But it also has a lifespan, like what are you going to do when you get to the end of that lifespan? Are you going to replace a whole other nitrogen generator? Okay. And then I think with the B piece…
Drew Slocum:
They’ve got the new thing in 25 too, right? NFPA 25 put in, I think there it’s in the ‘23 edition, or maybe it’s in ‘26 coming out. I think it’s in the ‘23 where you have to hold your nitrogen percentage at X, right? I think it’s like 95 or 98%.
Jim McHugh:
It’s 98—and it’s damn near impossible.
Drew Slocum:
It’s not going to happen. That’s impossible. So you’re going to have all these deficient systems, they’re going to be written up, they’re going to be replaced. So I don’t know that in itself…
Jim McHugh:
Are you going to, if that system drops to, say using your own software, if that system drops to 97, it’s not 98, it’s 97, you going to write it up?
Drew Slocum:
You’re going to write it up, you just might not…
Jim McHugh:
Are you going to go to the building owner and say, I want you to drop $15,000 on a new nitrogen generator. Guys going to tell you to…So I think that’s something that’s scary. Now, you look at General, General comes out with this new old technology. I’m not a scientist, I made valves. But I sat through their training on it to get a better understanding of it.
It looks like this was technology that the military used to protect armaments so that they would…if you’re going to store bombs down in boats, you’re going to make sure they can’t corrode. So on a molecular level, this coats metal to prevent corroding. So they are introducing this material into the sprinkler system through the compressor line. So, they interrupt from the compressor into the system on a molecular level, it goes into the system.
And the best analogy that I’ve heard is: picture your shopping mall and cars are pulling into the parking garage, and the car goes in and parks, and the next car goes in and parks next to it, and the next car goes in and parks next to it. Well, that’s how this stuff goes through a sprinkler system, and it just goes in and parks itself on the pipe. And that’s how it migrates throughout the whole piping system. And it just coats the inside of the pipe on a molecular level to prevent corrosion. And it puts a barrier between the inside of the pipe and water. And that’s how it stops corrosion.
And it does it at a significantly less expensive rate than the cost of a nitrogen generator. And then you just put one of these little devices, and the thing is the size of a briefcase. And it’s not like you’re buying this big nitrogen generator.
Well, to me, if I’m a dry system guy and you’re telling me, well, I got to spend $15,000 over here and that thing can wear out, or I’m going to spend a few grand over here for a briefcase, and all I got to do is change this little packet once a year, I’m going to go over there. So I think that is a game changer technology. I think Viking’s new—have you seen that completely toolless head system? The new…
Drew Slocum:
No, Bobby, Blue Collar Bobby, I think at one of the NFPA shows was doing a little thing on it where, you don’t need a wrench, right?
Jim McHugh:
Nothing. It’s just your, it’s hand tight.
Drew Slocum:
It’s crazy.
Jim McHugh:
It is wild.
Drew Slocum:
It’s all in the gasket and probably the threads, right?
Jim McHugh:
Yeah. It’s just an incredible little, the joint on it, it’s literally just hand tight. So again, you’re doing warehouse work and you got to think how fast you could put a head in. You’re just walking up. It’s just one click. So, I think it’s technology like that, the speed in which you can do these things. You’re putting a sprinkler head in finger tight and walking away. That’s pretty game changing.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, you’re empowering the fitters and the technicians, right? If you can empower them to be better at their job and faster at their job, but just more efficient and give them the tools in the field, both manually and digitally, then they’re going to better. Solve some of the labor issues that we have…
Jim McHugh:
I think we’re out of the—we’ve rounded the bend on the antifreeze problems. I think we’re finally, what has it been? 15 years of confusion of antifreeze?
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, that’s probably that fire, that Tahoe fire happened in early 2000s, I think.
Jim McHugh:
Yeah. So now I think that we’re out of the problems associated to that. So I mean, actually I’m very hopeful on a lot of this. Between a handful of these new technologies and the amount of software, I think—I look at it, and you singularly, Inspect Point was one of the main leaders in the industry in this, to make probably one of the best platforms out there to say, look, we need to have a singular good platform on how to do ITM work. I mean, I give you create credit for that.
Drew Slocum:
In fire, right? There were a couple out there, but it didn’t hit on some of the needs for the industry.
Jim McHugh:
No, but I think that’s the next thing. You had to make everybody’s job a little bit easier and coordinated. I still don’t know that that’s an area that’s fully understood. It seems like there’s a constant argument at the NFSA and AFSA level on coordination at the state level. State by state on the forms and the submittals level, on how people do ITM. It just doesn’t seem like anybody can get…
Drew Slocum:
There’s nobody focusing on it from the associations. I wish there were, and they talk about it a lot, but it’s all over the place. And that’s honestly why we even have a platform, because it is so fragmented around the U.S., and even around the world—is nothing standardized. And the AHJs want their own thing. But it’s pretty much the same thing. 90% of it, probably 95% of it, is pretty much the same, but the way they want the data is different in every jurisdiction sometimes.
Jim McHugh:
But why? I mean, you’re 10 times more familiar with it than I, but why? What’s the reason of wanting the data in a different form?
Drew Slocum:
I don’t know. They want it in their format. California’s got their own code for some odd reason because it’s just California. And then they’re going into an antiquated method because they want it on a form. It’s a PDF form, and I did a recent post on this. I’m like, forms are not the way to go. It’s the actual data and the system data itself that will power up predictive maintenance, right?
A form’s not going to do anything. Yes, it’s in a digital format, but you’re then going to have to standardize it somehow and then chug it through some AI engine to actually analyze that data.
So yeah, there’s no standardization. And funny enough, the contractors want it different ways sometimes, too. So a lot of our competing platforms, the contractors are having to create their own forms—or where are they getting those forms from? Is it…and NFPA changes every three years, too. Not much, but it’s changing. We just brought up the nitrogen thing that’s in the ‘23 code, but whenever a jurisdiction jumps onto ‘23, are they going to adopt that right away? Probably not.
Jim McHugh:
These, some of the, I think there’s a couple of…I sat through, so talking about things I think that need to be improvements or changes, I think that’s one of the issues that I wish our industry would dive on. I wish there’d be some more—conformity would be an inappropriate word to use—but I wish there’d be more uniformity there.
Another one, which is, and I don’t know how we’ll ever get this one, but okay, so you have all these great young kids, hopefully, that are coming into our industry that are going to be good designers, and they’re using great platforms. They’re using AutoCAD and SpringCAD, and they’re using great stuff to be good designers. And I think of my son, he did industrial design. He can do great stuff in 2D and 3D, but he’s more like a gamer. So he’s designing a system more like the mind of a gamer. He has no idea. He has no field knowledge, and he designs from like a gaming mentality. So when he designs a system with no field knowledge, it’s not connecting to the real world.
So I think there’s this disconnect between the design world, the stock list issue, and say the advocating world and the wholesale world, and they’re not all coordinating well. And I think that’s an ever-growing problem because we’re putting so much reliance on all things electronically designed without field knowledge, so we’re creating this generation of young designers with no field knowledge. And then you’ve got these fabricators that, okay, well everything’s done electronically on the fabricating side, and they’re smashing into each other. And you’re going to have all kinds of problems there. So I think there’s another issue that’s going to have to be improved upon.
It’ll only get better as you make smarter design systems. That’s another improving area that I think that’s going to get focus in our industries. How the next generation, there’s going to be a big leap in the improvement connection between the design, the stock list…the coordinating of all of that as one. I think that’s going to be the next big improvement we’re going to see in the industry.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of stuff coming and I’m excited to be a part of it, and it definitely is accelerating.
So let’s kind of wrap this up here. Where can we find out about AGF? I’m interested about this Connect feature too.
Jim McHugh:
Certainly like every company, you go to our website, agfmfg.com, and you’ll start to see—there’ll be product listings up there about it. I don’t know that AGF Connect is even up on the website yet.
All of the products that we make are up there. There’s a great…during COVID, we added some features to our website. It was a great opportunity for us to take some “me time,” and spend some time doing some changes to our website. We had internal time to just goof around. We made this cool product select, and it was find my part number. And what we did is, on all the different product lines that we have, the challenge was in no greater than five questions you could get to any part number of every variation of every product we make. So by just answering five simple questions on any one product line, it would give you the various part numbers and then that would hyperlink you to the 2D drawing, the 3D drawing, the O&M manual, all the various data points about every product.
Drew Slocum:
AGF’s got some AI going on now.
Jim McHugh:
It actually works well. It’s probably the number one thing our wholesalers have said. It’s the single most helpful thing they had. They can just go there, answer five questions, and it takes them right into anything they ever need to know about our products.
Drew Slocum:
That’s awesome.
Jim McHugh:
So that’s good. That’s at agfmfg.com. There’s another thing, there’s a link there to a thing called AGFU, and that’s our training module. We offer a couple of cool trainings, so I recommend…we do this, we do multi-day training. We have a training facility here in Philly, so it’s cool. We do half day, full day, multi-day training.
But we also do a lot of online training that you know about. We do these 15-minute, hard six slides, 15 minutes, single product training. So if some people, “Hey, can you just give me a brief overview of this one product? I am spec’ing it for this thing and I need the five bullet points.” So we do a lot of that.
And then I do, I think once every six weeks we do an accredited, CEU accredited, online class, and we get great attendance on that. We do a lot of those. And that’s all at that AGFU link.
Drew Slocum:
Awesome. This has been awesome, Jim.
Jim McHugh:
It has been fun. Thank you for having me. You know, it’s fun. I can remember when you and I were a lot younger and traveling together in the car.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, yeah. Back in the New York days.
Jim McHugh:
In fact, I just saw Chris Ramono last week.
Drew Slocum:
Oh, you did? Yeah. I was going to bring him up when you talked about the 5,000—I got the model number correct? I remember he loved those things.
Jim McHugh:
I’ll give you credit, Chris was singularly responsible for some of the, or inspirational for some of our product creation. Because some of the things that he has done with our products, installing them, has led us to modify and create products. I mean, he is like, “Hey, I wish you guys would change the product this way or do that.” And I’m in the back with a notepad going, not a bad idea.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, that’s great. I actually might throw some ideas by him now that you got my gears spinning about the Connect feature.
Jim McHugh:
People don’t realize, when you’re a small family business like us, a lot of the products we make, and you can look at a lot of the different things we do. It’s field people, it’s me out in the field or somebody calling going, “Hey, I wish someone made…I wish this product did this.” You look at our air vents and you look at the 7930 ECA, it’s our air vent with an end cap already assembled onto it. That was a contractor in California who said, I don’t know where I’m going to put your air vent. Can you just put an end cap? So I just pop them on the end of a branch line. I was like, okay.
Drew Slocum:
I got one yesterday. I got a text from one of our users like, “Hey, can you do this?” I’m like, yeah. And our feedback loop in software, it’s a lot easier. You could just pretty much do it. Well, I wouldn’t say pretty much do it, but the feedback loop’s a lot faster and you can do more. Product side, sometimes you have to get listings approvals, but it’s a little bit more..but voice of the customer, voice of the contractor is super, super important in the industry.
Jim McHugh:
I think being family, we’re a family business. I mean, you call, you’re going to get myself, my brother, somebody who I went to grade school, high school or college with here. So I think that people like that. The contractors call in and they’re like, yeah, I talked to Jim and Jim said…and then all of a sudden two weeks later, they’re like, “Hey, no shit. I got this product.”
Drew Slocum:
That’s great. I love it. Well, again, thanks for coming on the podcast and we’ll get this out in the month of October.
Jim McHugh:
Okay, cool.
Drew Slocum:
Yeah, appreciate it again.
Jim McHugh:
Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks everybody for listening.
Drew Slocum:
This has been episode 70 of The Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Want to thank Jim McHugh again for coming on the podcast to talk everything TESTanDRAIN and sprinkler. The evolution of the industry is changing, and I know he’s in front of it. So it was good to catch up. And yeah, thanks again for listening. Take care. Bye.
