I need an industrial vacuum. Where the heck do I start?

April 29, 2021
Featured in Article
Written by
Anh-Tai Vuong
President of DuroVac
Just 5 questions and 1 1/2 minutes. That’s all it takes for the Vac Selector to recommend an industrial vacuum system for your plant
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What the Vac Selector does

The Vac Selector tool is essentially a quiz. You’ll answer a maximum of five questions, which gives the Selector an idea of your material characteristics and other parameters. Last year, users spent an average of 1:31 completing it – faster than making a coffee.

At the end you’ll get a tailored recommendation from our catalogue of off-the-shelf industrial vacuum systems, as well as the recommended hose size and maximum run. There’s no obligation whatsoever.

If you decide to request a quote at the end, DuroVac will receive an alert and connect you to the appropriate DuroVac team member in your location.

What the Vac Selector doesn’t do

When you need a quick idea of which vacuum you need, the Vac Selector will get you started in the right direction, but it paints your solution with a broad brush.

We’ll never sell something that won’t work for [the customer's] application.
- Scott Woodward, Director of Sales

It’s possible you need an engineered solution. We provide customers with design-built industrial vacuums tailored to a specific need, such as integration into a custom loading system or added NFPA compliance. If your cleaning needs are unique, our design team is your best bet.

The Vac Selector also does not generate quotes itself, though you can request one at the end of the quiz. If you contact us by phone, our Regional Sales Managers can provide a quote within minutes. Otherwise we usually get back to you same-day or within 24 hours.

How does DuroVac provide quotes so quickly?

That’s a fair question, considering other suppliers can take several weeks to quote out vacuum recommendations. To put it simply, we translated our usual quoting pathways into mathematical formulas, which we used to develop online tools that do all the heavy number-crunching.

One is the Vac Selector, of course, which is light and user-friendly. Its big brother is the Online Selection Engine, a more robust version that helps our team quote quickly and accurately.

Don’t swat a fly with a sledgehammer

While we’ve streamlined the quoting process, it’s normal to have lots of questions about a vacuum purchase. The Vac Selector is there to help you take that first step, to take the mystery out of the (surprisingly mysterious!) world of industrial vacuums, and our team is here to make sure the end result fits your process like a glove.

Here’s one common question our customers often have in the early stages: What size of vacuum do I need?

“What happens quite often is customers want to size up the vacuum based on how many people they have in their plant,” says Scott Woodward, Director of Sales at DuroVac. “If there are 20 people in the plant, they ask for a 20-operator system. That can be done, but usually the scope and cost of something that large is not what they’re expecting.”

In many cases, it’s also overkill. There may be 20 people in the plant, but it’s unlikely they will all be using the vacuum at once, and sizing the vacuum either too big or too small can cause performance issues.

DuroVac is not in the business of “upselling” vacuums. Our Regional Sales Managers ask for the number of simultaneous operators, rather than the total number of workers, to size a vacuum system appropriately, so you’ll never overpay for features you don’t need.

“We walk customers through the operation of their plant to get it sized realistically – something that will fit in their budget,” Woodward explains. “If they spent $200,000 on a massive vacuum system and only have two or three people using it, it’s so much waste. We’ll never sell something that won’t work for their application.”

That’s where the quiz becomes a conversation. The DuroVac team will ask you more about your material, the mess levels in your plant and more. We can also make adjustments based on your needs, nice-to-haves and budgets.

At the end of the day, the Vac Selector is just another tool we provide to make your whole team happy – something we take to heart in our brand promise. If you’d like to learn more about any of that, just give us a call. We’re here to help!

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