DETAILS COUNT

“Communication does not occur until both sides understand the message and understands how their message was received.”

Making practical and functional bag fillers, components and pneumatic conveyance systems for your applications follow the same basic premise as running an efficient company of employees. It all comes down to communication: sending, receiving and understanding messages. Where many companies and processing systems fall short is on the understanding part of the communication. Through our mantra of “Details Count”, Magnum Systems strives for complete communication in both our equipment and our processes.

When integrating equipment into a fully operational system, the various components need to communicate to each other. Basic signals are sent in a variety of formats from a person hand palletizing bags yelling to the manual bag placer person “Hold on!” to an automatic check-weigh conveyor sending a signal to a kicker that a bag is out of tolerance and needs to be sent to a reject conveyor. In the manual operation it comes down to understanding terminology. If the pallet stacking employee yelled “Pineapple!” he is still sending a message, the bag placing employee would still hear that message, but is there a common understanding of what is to take place?

In a fully automated system, the integration programmer has to assure that the same language and terminology is understood between various components in the bag filling and/or pneumatic conveying process. For example, in robotic systems one way we assure the understanding portion of communication is through “proof of position”. When a signal is sent to the robotic arm to grab another empty pallet from a stack, there are a series of “proofs” taking place to make sure the right function is being understood. Is there a pallet still in the filling position? Is there a stack of pallets in the empty stack position to grab? How far down must the arm go for the next empty pallet? Are the forks fully engaged in the pallet before lifting? Etc. etc. These are a series of signals sent, received and confirmed or understood to make sure the action to take place is understood between all equipment involved. Add to this the communication to the bag filling equipment, the bag placing equipment, indexing conveyors, etc. to orchestrate a flow of communication to execute a simple function without causing a pile-up in another area.

In a pneumatic conveying system, the communication process is often just as complex. Airlocks can’t start turning until blowers are running. Blowers shouldn’t turn on until diverter valves have been switched and proofed. Diverter valves can’t switch until bin levels have been understood as either full or need to be filled. Once the system is running, there is another complete level of communication taking place to verify the product is flowing and the system is operating within acceptable parameters. If the series of signals sent and received are not understood, you won’t have a successful transfer of product.

Both Taylor Products and Smoot understand the importance of communication with their equipment, systems and integration. Besides having experienced programmers and service technicians to assure the communication process is field functional, they also apply the same communication techniques to deliver the best solution to meet the customer’s expectations. Our team is focused on a mutual understanding being attained between customer and Magnum employees from our sales person to project manager and through engineering, fabrication, assembly and installation.

Technology is constantly introducing new vehicles for the sending and receiving of communication in both integrated processing systems and between employees. In both processing and people, the new vehicle often provides the benefits of convenience, increased information and multi-tasking functionality, but are often initially hampered by a learning curve to assure understanding between all equipment and personnel through these vehicles. Magnum Systems recognizes the way to utilize new technologies and provide complete communication in the systems we offer is to strive towards enhancing our understanding of the internal communication process, because “Details Count”.

Magnum Systems: Concept to Completion.

Submitted By: Travis R. Wallace