The race toward optimal efficiency never ends, but today’s advanced techniques and technologies can get you closer to the finish line.
Improving efficiency in batching and blending is simple in concept. All you need to do is produce the most possible product using the least possible resources. That’s easier said than done, but by identifying challenges and applying engineering know-how you’ll find that small steps can lead to great strides in your batching and blending operations.
Efficiency improvements can start small with a single improvement in your process or a design upgrade to a single piece of equipment. A single “win” can get you in the race, be it a way to speed a machine’s changeover, block a material flow obstruction, improve metering accuracy, or remove a bottleneck. Each success leads to another. No matter the scope of your efforts or applications involved, you’ll likely confront some or all these challenges in engineering a solution for you, your process, and your customers:
1. Inefficient batching process
2. Poor recipe control
3. Loss of material
4. Labor/experience shortage
These challenges are interrelated, and we will discuss them — and solutions to overcome them — below.
1. Inefficient batch processing
Batch processes in any industry share many common efficiency challenges. Inefficient batching can be both the cause and result of production bottlenecks, delays between process steps or machine hand-offs, and overall waste in all its forms.
On the other hand, equipment and process design that addresses the right problems can unlock new levels of process performance. For example, adding a lump breaker can eliminate agglomerations in small-volume metering, or a feeder upgrade can improve dosing accuracy by improving the flow of sluggish granules or powders. (Related reading: Turn Batching Challenges Into a Competitive Advantage.)
In other cases, efficiency can be optimized by rethinking how materials can be moved from Point A to Point B within the constraints of the physical realities of your facility. For example, not all buildings can accommodate mezzanine levels for filling or conveyors to transport materials long distances. In such cases, alternative approaches can provide an efficient solution, as Lawrence Foods, a manufacturer of premium bakery ingredients, learned.
The company needed to pre-weigh bulk bags of powdered sugar from incoming 2,200-pound bags and create two 1,000-pound bags for downstream processing. However, the facility lacked sufficient ceiling height to unload the bulk bag directly into a filler in a single, vertical common frame.
The solution took the form of an integrated system using side-by-side frames incorporating a bulk bag unloader, a 15-foot screw conveyor, and a bag filler to create the 1,000-pound bags of powdered sugar. Weight and process controls ensured accuracy and filling directly onto a pallet enabled easy fork truck removal and transport to production. As a result, the company gained an engineered solution to overcome challenges due to space constraints, bypassing the need to modify its facility. Additional features aid efficiency, safety, dust control, ergonomics, and flexibility for future changes. (Learn the details of Lawrence Foods’ installation by reading Unload, Convey, Fill, Repeat.)
2. Poor recipe control
Recipe control picks up where batch management leaves off. A lack of comprehensive controls, from accurate measurement to connected digital controls, can lead to many sources of process inefficiency. These include errors caused by manual keying-in recipe parameters, lost time, production bottlenecks, reduced productivity, and increased costs. The solution to these and other weaknesses is digitalization, which enables the additional benefit of recipe management software tools for analyzing accuracy, quality, and other efficiency-related factors.
Many companies rely on manual data entry, which leads to quality deficiencies, product scrap and rework, inefficient labor, and downtime. This can result in losses of $1,000 or more for a 2,000-pound batch. We have seen companies with more than 50 recipes whose operators manually key-in parameters based on information from disparate sources such as clipboards and spreadsheets. In some cases, a vital piece of missing information caused delays, and the lack of efficient tracking documentation during and after processing compromised proper quality control and slowed efforts to improve processing.
Today, process control technology addresses such problems with long-established machine and process control technology. An operator panel connected to the programmable logic controller (PLC) running the equipment stores all recipes. These can be loaded for processing with little more effort than pressing a touchscreen of a menu selection (or even scanning a QR code for a recipe). Improvements can enhance process consistency, product quality, productivity, waste reduction, and more.
Operator interface software also provides alerts and tracks process data for additional uses. These include tracking and trending data for one or more pieces of equipment locally; or using a central workstation to track key performance indicators (KPIs) across a fuller set of operations. Process data can also be presented to multiple users in different roles for different reasons: plant initiatives, vendor remote maintenance services, corporate data analytics, compliance reporting, or any number of good, approved uses. (Click to read an overview of related Controls & Automation solutions.)
3. Loss of material
Material losses can occur anywhere in conveying, handling, and processing — from spills in manual or mechanical handling operations to dust from improperly sealed conveyors. In terms of equipment, bag filling is perhaps the most common source of costly material losses due to excessive overfilling, or product giveaway, to ensure compliance with weight requirements.
In one case, a company was experiencing losses with small, 320-ounce batches of a valuable material costing $1,200 per ounce. To ensure it met weight requirements, the company was overfilling and giving away profits, sometimes by more than two ounces per batch. Once the company identified the problem, the company upgraded to new, more accurate loss-in-weight feeders, precisely controlled overfilling to within 25 grams, and saved approximately $2,000 on each batch.
Loss-in-weight, or gravimetric, feeders are generally preferred for such quality-critical applications, however, volumetric feeders can be used for accurate filling at higher speeds. However, this choice is unlikely if your material’s bulk density varies such as when a hygroscopic material reacts to humidity and/or forms agglomerations. (Related reading: Volumetric vs. Gravimetric Feeder Operation).
Competitive realities typically lead plants to integrate multiple equipment assets with custom engineering and, increasingly, digital automation. One company used both techniques to more efficiently meter controlled amounts of four powdered ingredients. The project included several components including bulk bag unloaders, a dust collector to prevent a separate waste stream and lost product; pneumatic bag agitators to fluidize the material; and a lump breaker to tackle any agglomerations. From there, the powders were ready for loss-in-weight screw feeding
to a slurry tank for processing. The result was that the conditioned materials contributed to the optimal downstream mixing process performance. Process controls and user-friendly monitoring tools further eased the job and reduced labor requirements. (Click for related reading on Bulk Bag Unloading, Pneumatic Conveying, and Material Metering.)
4.Labor/experience shortages
Properly engineered mechanical and automation solutions provide additional benefits for productivity to reduce labor costs and overcome the difficulty of finding and training skilled labor.
Automation brings positive impacts in many ways to overcome labor and productivity challenges. It’s most visible to operators in the form of user-friendly interfaces that ease
tasks and save time. The benefits are also critical for operational continuity as experienced workers exit the workforce, taking their experience and knowledge with them. It also reduces companies’ requirements for up-front training and everyday labor requirements.
When discussing the company that used automation to improve recipe control (Challenge No.2 above), that operation used to require two operators: one to load the batch, and another to manage the recipe. After the automation upgrade, only one operator is needed for that processing station.
Digital automation together with mechanical design features both contribute to labor savings. Material handling equipment that is easy to operate alleviates environmental concerns and promotes health and safety in a processing facility in addition to solving labor challenges. Likewise, today’s equipment designs feature time-saving features that offer easy access for maintenance operations, quick clean-in-place with easy disassembly for cleaning, quick-release features, and more. In turn, digital automation makes it easier for one person to manage more parts of a process, which is essential for companies relying on fewer workers.
In the chemical industry, processors face the ongoing challenge of effectively mixing solids and liquids to blend slurries while minimizing labor (among other factors such as floor space, dusting, and energy usage). This traditionally entailed multiple workers and labor-intensive operations. Examples include workers climbing ladders and opening equipment doors with ingredients/materials in hand; controlling mixer agitators; and incurring risk in potentially caustic or hazardous environments. Today, solutions are available such as sealed conveyors
(e.g., pneumatic, tubular, helix) and automated bag-handling and processing equipment; valves on bag-handling equipment, and self-contained batching/blending equipment offer enhanced worker safety, labor savings, and high throughput. (Learn more by reading Pre-Mix Solutions and Slurries – Effectively, Economically, and Safely.)
Additional technologies offer greater cost-effectiveness and labor savings than ever, including labor-saving automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) and autonomous mobile robots (AMR) that shuttle materials across warehouses and production areas. (Learn more by reading: Using Material Handling Automation to Improve Efficiency.)
Efficiency: It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon
There’s no single solution for any given material handling, batching, or blending application. Significant efficiency improvements require varying degrees of customization to meet your material, processing, and business goals. Asking the right questions of your internal team and your external partners can take you closer and closer to your project’s finish line — and beyond, because the race toward greater efficiency and competitiveness is an ongoing journey.
When it comes to selecting a partner to provide equipment, systems, and engineering services, it’s most important that they have the breadth of expertise and deep knowledge of your needs, This, in turn, can go beyond solving problems to open new opportunities and benefits spanning design, reliability, serviceability, and much more.
About Hapman
We are a global manufacturer of standard and custom bulk material handling equipment and complete material handling systems, with locations in North America, Europe, and Asia. Our process has been proven across 12,000 applications across all major bulk material processing industries in every US state and 56 countries worldwide.
Whether your equipment needs are standard and straightforward or elaborate and controlled, Hapman’s team of applications experts will assist you with any level of support.
Our company culture is driven by new ideas, fresh thinking, and continuous improvement. That’s why Ideas that Move™ is more than a slogan. It’s an integral part of who we are. We seek to acquire and share new knowledge, build on our experience, collaborate with you and other industry experts, and push perceived process limitations — all while fully embracing disciplined engineering and quality material handling practices.
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Take the next step towards innovation and excellence. Contact our experts at (800) 427-6260 or sales@hapman.com for a personalized consultation.