Reprinted from GRAIN JOURNAL May/June 2020 Issue
Tim Ciucci | Senior VP-Sales & Marketing | CompuWeigh Corp. | Marquette, MI
“What’s changing at the elevator is the automation system making decisions on its own, based on what specifically what bin best matches the commodity and grade being delivered. Elevators are having a hard time staffing, so it helps when they are able to operate without human input.
“The way the CompuWeigh SmartTruck and plant automation systems work is that each truck has an RFID tag hanging from their visor. That tag is tied to the truck itself, not a specific farm/split entity. Drivers pull up to the tag reader, the tag is read, and the system displays the last farm/split entity that this specific truck hauled for.
So, for example, this truck was here an hour ago hauling for Murphy Farms, and it was a 50/50 split between Mike and Mary Murphy. If the driver agrees with that previous load information, he presses a ‘confirm’ soft-key button on a touchscreen terminal outside positioned next to the truck. If different, the driver can view a list of previous farm/split combinations and select accordingly. Alternatively if hauling for a farm/split not listed, the driver can call the probe attendant for help. This puts the onus on the driver for making the correct farm/split decision, rather than the probe attendant.
“Then, the truck gets probed, leaves the probe, and proceeds to the inbound scale. By the time truck arrives on the inbound scale, the grading process is hopefully complete, and the truck is automatically instructed on a large outdoor message board to proceed to the specific dump pit that is feeding the bin that best matches the grading characteristics of this load. Photo eyes confirm the truck is fully on the scale, and the gross weight is automatically taken without the need for a scale attendant.
“The driver arrives at the assigned dump pit, and the RFID tag is again scanned. A red traffic light signal is displayed to the truck to wait – and this is where the elevator automation comes in. We pass the commodity and grade information tied to this load to the automation system and say, ‘We’ve got a truck sitting outside, and it has corn on it at 17% moisture.’ At this point the system confirms that the path leading from the dump pit the truck has arrived at is correctly set to reach the bin that best matches the load.
“If, however, the previous truck dumping is sending grain to a different bin (based on different characteristics), no worries. That truck is allowed to finish, and the automation system is told to purge the grain path leading out of this pit and set up a path to the bin that best matches the commodity and grade factors of the next truck waiting. Once it is confirmed the path is clear (by measuring amps on the leg, etc.), and the diverter has been set correctly, the automation system reports back, ‘Okay, I’m ready for that next truck. A green traffic light is then displayed to the driver, and the truck pulls into the pit area and dumps.”
“The truck then proceeds to the outbound scale and is again automatically identified by the RFID tag, photo eyes confirm the truck is fully on the scale, and the tare weight is taken automatically by the system and the scale ticket prints.”
Shawn Cadman | Grain Automation Sales Representative | Kasa Controls | Salina, KS
“Over the past couple of years, I would say one of the biggest factors contributing toward more automation of grain facilities is that there’s a lower number of eligible workers for elevator-type jobs. So, people are definitely leaning toward automation so that they can avoid being shorthanded trying to hire people.
“We automated a high-speed rail-loading facility in Milan, KS for Mid-Kansas Cooperative. Increasing the speed of a rail terminal benefits the operators and customers. It takes what would have been a 12-hour job and turns it into a seven- or eight-hour job and with fewer and fewer people. So, automation helps with much quicker processing of grain.
“The faster and more automatically you can move grain, the faster you can move trucks and trains in and out of the elevator.
“Additionally, when you reduce the number of boots on the ground, you reduce the possibility of people getting injured. So there’s a safety component, as well.”
Cheryl Lansink | Director of Sales | Comco Mfg. Ltd. | Ida Grove, IA
“The biggest thing we’re seeing right now is the move toward more automation, because there are fewer people available to work in facilities. Way back when, kids finished high school and went to work somewhere local. Now, kids are taking off for college and moving to the cities, and there are not as many available bodies to work at local facilities.
“Automation is becoming a requirement, because facilities just don’t have the people. The fewer people that it takes to operate the plant, the better.
“As a result, automation systems have to get smarter to account for that. Field devices have to be able to relay more information, because there are fewer people to go out and check the physical status of the equipment.
“Also, plant equipment needs to be really user-friendly and intuitive. The equipment on the site, like the sensors and monitoring equipment, have to be, as well.
“There have been so many mergers going on that it’s hard to say with any certainty what’s going into what types of facilities. What I’m seeing is that companies are picking their busiest sites, their flagship facilities, and those are the ones that are running harder and longer. But certainly, the new facilities are pushing automation and adopting the newest technology.
“We’re also seeing managers stretched thin – no longer are they necessarily relegated to a single site. They’re asked to oversee more than one facility.
“As a result, remote accessibility is a big thing. It’s especially necessary now that facilities have fewer people, or if they run longer hours with fewer people. The facility manager can dial in and troubleshoot from home if there is a snag. Even a nutritionist in the feed industry may be in one location overseeing the needs of many mills remotely.
“We’re starting to see a big push toward data integration. A lot more facilities are running, and companies want them to run more efficiently. So they want metrics on questions like: How much is this equipment running? How efficient is it? How much feed are we running? How much throughput are we pushing?
“We’re seeing upper-level management pushing for more reports to see where they can add production or throughput or tying in their accounting systems so that they’re seamless. They can push information back and forth to see what things are costing.”
Mark Mohr | Vice President-Sales | Kahler Automation | Fairmont, MN
“The main trend we are seeing is a strengthening of the push for productivity and documentation across the spectrum of our jobs. More so now than ever before, there is a drive to take out the risk for error and to be able to manage peak seasons with the limited staff that our customers usually have.
“If it’s the fall rush, there’s usually more work than there are people. And so a lot of our jobs are looking now at really fully automating things all the way from scale into unloading and scaling out, so that once a truck’s weighed in and probed, it’s a seamless process.
“Using things like RFID tag readers, so that the customer is identified, is becoming very popular – and even using them throughout the facility, so that they could go into the right pit, they’re confirmed, they’re in the right place, and the facility essentially runs as a one-load machine.
“It knows when the truck gets there, what the product is, where the grain needs to go, and running the right conveyors to get it there. It takes a lot of risk away from the individual who is running the pit and really helps to make the facility run more smoothly.
“The key drivers behind the trend are the labor situation in the communities where a lot of these facilities are and the seasonality of the business. You’ve got a rush during a small number of weeks, so automation lessens the burden of finding additional people to run the facility and let’s you be more flexible in the skill levels of the people hire to do the jobs. Companies are considering these things when building. They’re tailoring facilities toward the significant use of automation. This allows your hiring practices to be more flexible to match the realities of the local labor market.
“I’ve talked about labor from the unloading and facility operations side of things. The other side of that is the documentation and the recordkeeping in the office. So being able to scale in and the trucks being identified through RFID, where the weights are recorded automatically, can also can save a lot of time and effort in the office.
“Along with that goes eliminating opportunities for error. It’s an accuracy trifecta, if you will. It’s accuracy, productivity, and the documentation that’s all done according to plan.”
Josh Coder | President | Control Stuff Inc | Cologne, MN
“The first of two top trends is mobilization of control and monitoring. By that, I mean moving that control and monitoring from a fixed PLC, HMI system to mobile devices, tablets, or even remote devices at distant locations or homes. No longer are you tied to that one HMI screen in front of you at the truck dump. You now can see that on your phone, walking around the grocery store, or from some other remote location.
“The second trend we’ve seen with most of the big grain facilities out there, as well as with an increasing number of requests for it from smaller facilities and customers, is integrating the business system into the automation system to the extent that the business system is making operational decisions for the automation system.
“That means no longer is somebody keying the information into a business system and then going to another PC and keying that information in to start the automation system. Now, once a truck is checked in, the information already is handed off to the automation system. By the time the truck gets to the pit, the route has been determined, and the information is waiting for the operator. Those systems are fully integrated to eliminate multiple sources of control, monitoring, and reporting. You have a single point for a one-stop-shop for control, monitoring, and reporting.
“The biggest thing driving these trends is the speed of getting trucks on and off the property. There’s a strong desire to keep those folks on the property for as short a period of time as possible.
“Another big driver toward automation is the desire for a reduction in human error. If you have multiple people inputting variables into a system, you have the fat-finger opportunity for typos. Perhaps it got entered as corn in the business system, and it is, in fact, soybeans. But something happened in the communications between the guy who entered the corn into the business system and the guy who’s binning that grain. Now we’ve got a mixed commodity. So, you’ve either made really expensive corn or really cheap soybeans, neither of which is good.
“I think this trend is driven largely by the younger generations of workers who are coming into the elevator business now. We effectively have this generation that is 100% digital native. They have had everything at their fingertips at a moment’s notice. They can check their bank account, or they can check what groceries they bought last week. It only makes sense to that generation to look at their grain elevator on that same device. We didn’t see that even five or 10 years ago.”
Steven Day | Senior Project Manager | Greenstone Systems | Alpharetta, GA
“When it comes to automation, what we’re seeing is a continuation of what began at larger sites. The desire for higher-volume facilities is trickling down to the mid- and small-sized elevators.
“Grain companies want the customer experience to be the same at all elevators, regardless of the size.
“Another trend we’ve witnessed over the past several years is the desire for an outbound scale. Adding a second scale away from the scale house can alleviate your traffic flow. Outbound scales are automated, so there’s no reason to have someone manning that area. Small facilities and even ethanol plants have started doing this.
“Oilseed processors are beginning to use automation to manage inbound and outbound traffic. They have oilseeds coming in to the facility, as well as trucks for co-products like oil and meal. Automation can help keep all of that truck flow for dumping and loadout organized.
“We’re implementing a lot of automation systems for pickups or loadouts of co-products. Pickup often is manless. So at an ethanol plant, you may be coming into pick up DDGs, and you would drive to the scale that’s dedicated for that and not interact with anyone. But there would be a message board there that would tell drivers to enter their load number. The system then would give permission to enter the plant to load.
“This is an area of automation that’s a more recent trend. Those types of transactions can be made manless because it’s a load order. It’s sold. Somebody is there to pick it up; they are coming in, and they’re going to be telling the operator in the scale house a number that they have for pickup. So what we’re doing is saying, ‘No, leave that operating scale house alone. Pull up, and input the number into our system.’”
