Winning a contract is always cause for celebration. Using the opportunity to transform how you deliver your service is an added bonus. That’s exactly what happened when a West Australian transport company won a supply chain management contract for a global drinks manufacturer.
The contract called for an economical, clean, quiet mobile conveyor for the rapid decanting of 1,000 kg bulk bags of sugar into road tankers. In addition, they wanted to run with minimal operator intervention. The company knew it was time to replace their pneumatic system with something more agile and efficient.
The bulk sugar application would run intermittently, making a mobile truck loader system highly desirable. The ability to store the mobile conveyor when not in use would free warehouse space for other operations.
Floveyor F5 truck loader delivers high throughput for bulk sugar handling
The Floveyor F5 aero-mechanical mobile conveyor proved to be the perfect choice for the food and beverage application. Several features made it a better choice than pneumatic conveying traditionally used by the transport company. These include:
- Light, modular design
- Mobile frame with castor wheels for additional flexibility
- Compact and space friendly
- Energy-efficient 5 kw motor
- High throughputs at a range of angles.
In consultation with the customer, Floveyor built and tested the Elementa F5 mobile conveyor at our research facility in 2009. Additional features were included with the conveyor system, including:
- Integrated truck loading attachment
- Built-in venting
- Mobile skid.
The new system operates so cleanly that tanker clean downs after loading have now been eliminated from their process. This allows for even faster truck loading turnaround times.
Floveyor lump breaker maintains flow of hygroscopic materials
Another challenge when considering bulk sugar handling was directly related to the hygroscopic material characteristics of sugar. Atmospheric and temperature changes in transit activated the sugar’s ability to form lumps of various sizes. Floveyor addressed this problem in two ways:
- The Floveyor F5 mobile conveyor uses an integrated safety grid to stop or break lumps.
- A Floveyor lump breaker was retrofitted to condition the sugar by breaking some of the smaller lumps prior to filling the road tankers. this eliminated problems for the customer at both ends of the truck loading and unloading process.
Scaling bulk sugar handling with Floveyor truck loading technology
A quality systems review by the transport company identified the potential to shift their sugar handling operation from 1,000 kg bulk bags to 25 tonne sea containers. This would provide economies of scale but only if the transfer would be fast enough to avoid incurring demurrage costs from the sea container company. In 2012, the transport company added two additional Elementa F5 mobile conveyors which were able to meet the throughput demands.
Fitting the conveyors with an easily removable adaptor inlet feeding into the lump breaker gave the transport company the flexibility they needed. They could now move lump-free sugar at high speeds between bulk bags or sea containers and road tankers.
For more information
If you need conveying machinery and bulk material handling equipment for your process, a Floveyor with FloDisc® Technology will optimise your powder handling. Contact us to learn more.
