This week’s Industry Person of the Week is Adonis Layyous, VP of Sales at Pye-Barker Engineered Solutions.
Q: How did you get started working in your field?
Adonis: I started working in this field when I was 11 years old. I was brought up in Lebanon. My father was the representative in the Middle East of several U.S. manufacturers of mechanical equipment (like pumps, valves, tanks, boilers, etc…). So I started working with him selecting and pricing equipment at a very early age.
Q: What do you love the most about your job? What are you most proud of?
Adonis: The most exciting thing about my job is solving problems for customers. I have been doing this kind of work for over 35 years. I learn something new every day. The challenges that we see in the industrial market segment are endless. To be able to work with these different industries and solve their problems is very satisfying.
Q: What advice would you give to someone considering this line of work or new to the field?
Adonis: Our industry is not considered “sexy”. We do not have the high tech bells and whistles that the younger generation is craving these days. It is a very mature market. My advice would be this: if you love to solve problems then you are in the right field. If you love to apply your engineering background to real life problems, you are in the right field. If you are committed to a life of continuous learning and self-development, you are in the right field.
Q: Can you talk about a project you recently worked on?
Adonis: One recent project comes to mind as it involves a mix of everything that a supplier is being challenged with these days. I worked on a large industrial project for a world-renowned manufacturer in LaGrange, GA. They required seven large industrial blower packages to feed air into a large furnace. Early in 2020 I started working with the engineer that is working on the plant expansion. I recommended the right blowers for their application. We went through several iterations of design changes, each time recommending the most energy efficient blower for their application. The final design required each blower to deliver 4200 ICFM at a discharge pressure of 14PSIG. Each blower was driven by a 400HP motor. In today’s COVID-19 world, supply chains are being stretched to the limit and with just-in-time manufacturing, we have seen tremendous delays in equipment deliveries. In mid 2020 when we quoted this job, the lead time was 12 weeks. When it cam time to order the equipment in Feb. 2021, it had stretched to 20 weeks. After we secured the order by about five weeks, we learned that there will be an additional 8 week delay. This recent delay was caused by lack of containers to ship the components from various parts of the world for final assembly in the US plant. So now I have to spend a considerable amount of time with the manufacturer and the end user on a weekly basis discussing various methods of expediting the order to help the customer stay within the project completion time frame. So what started out to be a very satisfying and important project for our company, is turning out to be a major headache in implementation. Yes it is not really our company’s problem per say as we are the middle man, but we have to manage the project to keep both the manufacturer and our customer happy. This has been the reality in the industrial market segment of working in this COVID world these past 14 months.
Connect with Adonis Layyous on LinkedIn!
THANK YOU, ADONIS! WE LOOK FORWARD TO KEEPING UP WITH YOU THROUGH THE #PUMPTALK COMMUNITY!
KNOW AN AMAZING PERSON WHO IS MAKING VALUABLE CONTRIBUTIONS WITHIN INDUSTRY? NOMINATE THEM TO BE AN “INDUSTRY PERSON OF THE WEEK”!
Comments