On Monday evening, September 26, 2016, BSA President, John Ruth, BDI, presented the very first Annual BSA Excellence Awards for outstanding service by bearing distributors and bearing manufacturers to the end use customer. The Bearing Manufacturer Excellence of Innovation in Product Design Award recognizes companies for innovation and excellence in product design or technology. BSA distributor members reviewed and ranked manufacturer innovation submissions. Among the abundance of innovative product designs submitted, three submissions were chosen to be recognized for their outstanding service to the end use customer. The first Manufacturer Excellence Award was presented to Baldor - Dodge for the Ultra Kleen Ball Bearing. The Dodge Ultra Kleen Ball Bearing features a stainless steel insert available in both polymer and stainless steel housings. The insert includes the patented QuadGuard seal and Maxlife cage which protects the bearing in extremely harsh environments and provides extended life. The combination of corrosion resistant features and advanced sealing make the Ultra Kleen bearing perfect for demanding applications found in the food and beverage industry. Ultra Kleen bearings can now be equipped with the new metal detectable end cover which further improves reliability and safety for users. Chris Keyser, vice president – channel management and industry/packaged solutions accepted the award on behalf of Baldor Electric Company for the Baldor - Dodge Ultra Kleen ball bearing. The second Manufacturer Excellence Award was presented to Schaeffler Group for the FAG SmartCheck. The FAG SmartCheck from Schaeffler is a revolutionary condition monitoring device that fits in the palm of your hand. It is a compact yet powerful system that enables decentralized, permanent machine condition monitoring. Smaller than a baseball yet far more than a classic vibration measuring device, SmartCheck has its own internal network browser that enables monitoring and diagnostics from anywhere in the world. Combining an affordable price with a high degree of safety, SmartCheck delivers a full range of machine diagnosis and rolling bearing-related services. With its FAG SmartCheck vibration measuring device, Schaeffler has taken condition monitoring to a whole new level of convenience and portability. It all comes down to avoiding costly downtime. But, don’t let its compact size fool you! It is a fully self-contained online monitoring system. Perfect for monitoring equipment like motors, pumps, gearboxes, fans and so much more. Think of SmartCheck as kind of like a machine doctor. Just attach it to your machine and it learns what the equipment should be doing when it’s operating correctly, and alerts you when its health begins to change. Plus, with an available Schaeffler app, you can check the condition of your equipment right on your smartphone! Kevin Kozlowski, vice president, industrial distribution Americas, Schaeffler Group USA, Inc. accepted the Award on behalf of Schaeffler Group for the FAG SmartCheck. The third Manufacturer Excellence Award for outstanding service to the end use customer was presented to The Timken Company for the Timken Sheave Pac Bearing Assembly. The Timken Company introduced this product to help increase safety and improve uptime on oil rigs. The Timken Sheave Pac bearing assembly was designed to eliminate the need to re-grease the traveling block or crown block on oil rigs. In the past, maintenance personnel performed the challenging task of re-lubricating the crown and traveling blocks situated hundreds of feet above the rig platform. The Timken Sheave Pac alleviates that job through its sealed-for-life sheave bearing assembly, helping to increase safety for rig workers and reduce expensive downtime. The pre-greased, pre-set and unitized Timken Sheave Pac can eliminate the need for re-greasing the bearing because Timken engineers designed the bearing assemblies to run an entire operating cycle between rebuild without the need for re-lubrication or additional maintenance. The Sheave Pac assembly easily interchanges with current industry-standard bearing assemblies and seals. The Sheave Pac bearing provides the rig operator increased profitability, efficiency and operational safety. These benefits result from the elimination of sheave grease maintenance, which increases block availability and the removal of placing personnel in dangerous positions associated with standard block grease maintenance. Chris Coughlin, executive vice president and group president at The Timken Company, accepted this Award on behalf of The Timken Company for the Sheave Pac Bearing Assembly. The 2016 BSA CBS Excellence Award recognizes BSA Distributor Companies with the highest percentage of their inside and outside sales force’s having attained CBS status. BSA’s Certified Bearing Specialist (CBS) program is the only bearing industry-specific program that identifies and quantifies the specific skill sets to certify an industry professional as a bearing specialist. On Monday night, BSA recognized three companies with Honorable Mentions for this Award. B&D Industrial, BDI USA and Motion Industries Canada Inc. received special recognition for the number of Certified Bearing Specialists within their sales force. Both of the CBS Excellence Award winning distributor companies have over 20 percent of their total sales force holding CBS status. This award recognizes the esteemed regard of the CBS designation by these two companies specifically, and the industry as a whole. The recipients of the 2016 CBS Excellence Award for outstanding service to the bearing end use customer are BDI Canada Inc. and Bearing Headquarters Company. Bill Shepard, who is a Certified Bearing Specialist himself and is vice president southwest region and marketing for BDI USA accepted the award for BDI Canada. Jim Scardina who serves as the senior vice president of Bearing Headquarters Company accepted the award for Bearing Headquarters Company. Bearing Specialists Association (BSA) Phone: (630) 858-3838 URL: www.bsahome.org