AGI • 800-328-1785 • http://aggrowth.com/
As a global leader in the planning, engineering and manufacturing of a full line of grain handling equipment, AGI (www.aggrowth.com), operates across five platforms – seed, fertilizer, grain, feed, and food. The company partners with its customers on six continents to engineer market-specific systems.
These systems are delivered for farm and commercial applications and include storage, handling, structures, processing, and technology, all produced through engineering and project management.
Grain Journal spoke in late June with David E. Wernsing, general manager of AGI Union Iron, Decatur, IL (217-429-5148), and Jeff Fjelstul, director of sales-strategic food for AGI SureTrack, Lenexa, KS (855-293-5607), to learn how the two divisions of AGI are working together to provide a complete temporary storage system featuring AGI Union Iron’s Temp-Stor and AGI SureTrack’s PileManager aeration management software.
Fjelstul: AGI SureTrack released the SureTrack 2.0 software platform in April of this year, offering an improved user interface and added features for PileManager. The software automates temporary storage pile aeration, and its automated fan system ensures grain tarps remains in place.
Wernsing: AGI Union Iron recently added a new 4-foot-x-8-foot wall panel offering to Temp-Stor product configurations. We spent a significant amount of time listening to our customers and used that feedback to inform the new wall panel design. Customers indicated that an 8-foot-long wall may be preferred to the 10-foot-long wall for a variety of reasons: The 8-foot-long wall is easier to maneuver when installing, and the wall bundles are lighter, so a smaller forklift can be used to unload trucks.
AGI Union Iron also took the opportunity to design the Temp-Stor walls so they nest together better for shipping. The 8-foot wall panels are now banded together in groups of five. This cuts the time to load and unload the panels on trucks by 50%. The improved nesting also greatly reduces the likelihood of damage during shipping.
By moving to an 8-foot-long wall, AGI Union Iron was able to decrease the number of leg sections from four to three. This reduces field assembly time by 25%. Equally important, the new 4-inch-x-8-foot wall height is just under 48 inches. Per Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations, if the wall height exceeded 48 inches, additional fall protection would be required around the walls for personnel to walk safely on the pile edge.
AGI Union Iron also turned the tarp nailer-board 90 degrees to make tarp installation and fastening simpler and quicker. We increased the number of perforations in the wall planks and increased the size of open area by over 150%.
Finally, AGI Union Iron has acquired a new TRUMPF TruPunch 3000 CNC punching machine. The machine allows us to produce all perforated and non-perforated planks, which gives us more control over lead time and quality. We will continue to offer the traditional 4-foot-x-10-foot Temp-Stor wall panel, as well as the 6-foot-x-10-foot and 9-foot-x-10-foot walls, but are very excited about the advantages our new wall structures offer.
Fjelstul: Managing a bumper crop of grain is a part of the business that occurs often. Overflow grain can be managed via temporary storage, but it’s important to partner with a company that has more than just one component of temporary storage to offer the customer. AGI Union Iron continues to meet complete temporary storage needs with offerings that exceed industry standards.
Wernsing: One of the big questions currently is, “Where’s the corn going?” Corn demand is low at the moment, due to an ethanol industry slowdown, restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, trade deals impacting imports and exports, and the weather. We are at the point in the U.S. crop year when the size of the crop is predicted to be large, but we will not know for a few more months how it will play out. With all that in mind, corn will require storage, and AGI products are a great solution.
Reprinted from Grain Journal July/August 2020 Issue
