Unapparent Vitality & Serious Impact: Industrial Fasteners & Their Functionality

“Two small fish are swimming in a lake… an older fish crosses their path, he turns and says: Hello, boys! How’s the water? The two young fish continue swimming for a time, and then one turns to the other and asks: What the heck is water?”

For a joke about water it’s a dry one, but it emulates a serious point. As we go about our day-to-day lives, the very obvious things—things all around us—seem to elude us and our recognition. Industrial fasteners aren’t things that people think about as they go about their day-to-day lives, but that mundane fact doesn’t mean that so many day-to-day lives aren’t intrinsically dependent on such things. Fasteners of all types are used in literally countless products. They’re incorporated in products and productions, ranging from pieces of machinery to automobiles, from planes to boats, from giant buildings to appliances and all aspects of (and in) your home. They might be small in stature, but suffice it to say: these little components are essential and deeply vital; without quality, functioning industrial fasteners all industry would be impossible. Like the invention of the wheel, the functionality of simple instruments can change everything; likewise, dysfunctionality can—of course—change everything.

When Low-Quality Industrial Fasteners Cannot Do Their Job

Fastener failure will bring processes and equipment to a grinding halt. Consider: their small size and their affordable cost. Yet, industrial fasteners make such an impact on such a wide range of businesses and industries alike (e.g. the military, the automotive industry, various electronic appliances, building construction, the medical field, etc.). But what happens when industrial fasteners fail? John Alan Robinson wrote a thesis called the “Statistical Analysis of Failure Strengths in Industrial Fasteners.” In this piece, he wrote that several decades ago

“…the U.S. saw the beginning of a major problem with the importation of counterfeit… [bolts] into the country thus finding their way into the manufacturers supply chains and consequently their products.”

As you can imagine, the predicament caused by low-quality fasteners cost countless dollars, and, more seriously, injury. While these problems were fixed, your industry may have encountered problems simply by virtue of poor products and poor services from your industrial fastener providers.