Some of the most enduring images of the COVID-19 pandemic will be the photos of empty supermarket shelves, plastered across social media, as lockdown anxiety took hold. Fear became tangible through those images, giving us a stark reminder that the things we take for granted can be taken away in an instant.

Those scenes were particularly powerful to those in the commercial food and beverage manufacturing industry. Not only for the unprecedented demand that required a quick response, but as a red flag to operations managers. The margins of error have all but vanished now; the pandemic response has shown us we can never be too prepared, and that any failure or disruption to operations can be catastrophic.

When we hear about the Fountains of Bellagio in Las Vegas or the Dubai Fountain at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai the first thing that comes to mind is likely the grandeur of the fountains and their choreographed performances set to lights and music. But beneath the surface of these world-famous attractions is a thoughtfully engineered design that aims to meet the same key drivers sought in any manufacturing setting: cost, energy savings and system functionality. Traditional fountains use pumps and pipes, but for displays of such size and power an air compressor has many benefits.