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APRIL 2014 • AviationPros.com 7 Visitors to Rampmaster's booth at AviationPros LIVE trade show held last month in Las Vegas might have paid more attention to the fow control and bypass servos, Venturis, primary valves, secondary valves, versa valves, pilot valves, regulators and sense lines also on display alongside this relatively small plastic box. All those mechanical parts and pieces, however, are exactly what Rampmas- ter's patented Engine Management (Flow Control) System does away with and, in the process, saves money on fuel and wear and tear on the Rampmaster refueling trucks. The typical refueler truck operator has to run the engine at high RPMs to pump the fuel while a bevy of me- chanical devices and sensors regulate pressure to the wing. The programmed circuitry hidden inside the grey plastic box takes care of much of this operation and can produce the same pressure with less power. "EMS gives operators the ability to control the fow of fuel in the fuel truck using the engine and eliminating the tra- ditional parts we used to have in the sys- tem," says Kevin Ward, the company's vice president of marketing and sales. "By doing away with these we've done away with anything that would restrict the fow of the fuel." As a result, the truck can deliver the optimum fow of fuel by running just off idle. "Eliminating the restrictions of de- livering fuel is the key," Ward says. Eliminating the restrictions means eliminating the need to raise the RPM of the truck's engine. "It adds up to a big savings on fuel used in operations day to day, plus it adds to the longevity to the engine and drive train by not revving the RPMs to deliver fuel." The technology was developed by Owen Watkins, Rampmaster's chief op- erating offcer while he served as vice president of engineering and production. "No longer does a fuel truck have to waste engine fuel by moving fuel around in a bypass loop while the engine stays at a high RPM," Watkins explains. "EMS allows the engine RPM to vary up and down depending on what the aircraft needs are." While the product's innovation cer- tainly went a long way toward earning their year's Ground Support Leader award, Rampmaster sealed the deal when it took the added measure of ob- taining third-party verifcation that the product did all that it promised. THIRD-PARTY TESTS After introducing the EMS two years ago at our trade show and other industry events, the company hired West Virginia University's Center for Alternative Fu- els, Engines and Emissions to put the product through a series of tests. CAFEE is a nonproft research center well-known for its research measuring T his year's Ground Support Product Leader award-win- ner is, at its most basic, a grey plastic box that isn't much bigger than a man's hand. Rampmaster's Center for Product Innovation The Engine Management System was the frst project released from the company's Center for Product Innovation. As the EMS was undergoing testing by West Virginia University's Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emis- sions, Rampmaster was also developing another product innovation that it recently released. The Rampmaster Active Monitoring Pro- gram or RAMP, tracks refueler truck data throughout daily operations and provides customers with this information to better manage their operations. Key Features • Continuously monitor all trucks via two- way communications using onboard sensors and diagnostics. • Alerts, dashboards, analytics accessibly via the Web on computer and mobile devices using cloud storage. • Replaces traditional maintenance programs and monitoring with real-time information. Eliminating the restrictions of delivering fuel is the key gsm_6-9_CoverStory.indd 7 4/10/14 9:32 AM