As a Magnum Systems special projects manager, Joel Sawalich has seen some stuff. Pipeline blockages, material degradation and segregation—you name it. Mike Abare, technical sales manager for Magnum, asks Joel to recall some of the most common and worst challenges he’s seen in pneumatic conveying today. Cautionary tales? Practical tips and solutions? You decide.
Transcript
Mike Abare:
Welcome to Magnum Systems Podcast, where we'll aim to dive deep into the world of A for automate, I for integrate, M for manufacture. I'm your host, Mike Abare, and I'll be bringing you expert interviews, thought-provoking discussions, and real-world case studies that shed light on the latest trends and developments of systems integration. Whether you're a seasoned professional who's seen it all, or just curious about manufacturers who are revolutionizing their operations, this podcast is your one source resource. So, sit back, relax as we aim to cover all the challenges, automation and integration is solving today. Let's do this.
Mike Abare:
Hello everyone. Today I have the distinct pleasure of having Joel Sawalich join us. Welcome to the show, Joel.
Joel Sawalich:
Hey, thanks for having me.
Mike Abare:
It's great having you here. Joel and I have had the distinct pleasure of working together over the years. We've been in the bulk material handling industry for almost two decades, working at a couple of different companies together. Joel, can you share a little bit more about your background and specifically what you do at Magnum Systems and what you've done and how it leads up to what you're doing today?
Joel Sawalich:
Yeah. I started out in a pneumatic conveying company right out of college. This is my 34th year.
Mike Abare:
Just 34 years, huh?
Joel Sawalich:
Just 34 all in a row. But yeah, I've done this for a while. Kansas City offers a good opportunity to for these kind of industries and I basically have done everything from flow drawings to project management to sales installations to startups. Kind of done it all.
Mike Abare:
Been around the block.
Joel Sawalich:
Yes sir.
Mike Abare:
Awesome, awesome. So that's part of the reason why we had you on today, Joel, is, is due to your knowledge. The topic today is the significance of designing a system and then the layout or what the layout or the impact the layout has to the design of a pneumatic conveying system. Certainly, as you shared, you've had a lot of experience, not only sizing equipment, but where it fits into the plant, how it fits into the plant, (how) it lays out to design, those kind of things. So, Joel, we have you on the show today because of your extensive background. And with today's topic, the significance of a properly designed and laid out pneumatic conveying system certainly felt that you were an expert in that field. Again, simply because the experience you've had over the 30 plus years in this industry. Can you first speak to the layout of pneumatic conveying systems and how that what we think about or what goes into the laying of a pneumatic conveying system?
Joel Sawalich:
Sure. Well, typically you're going to obviously have a beginning and an end. And so we're very interested in where the equipment will be located in the plant. For instance, if you've got a rail car unloading system or you have silos and then from that point going into the plant where you're conveying to the destination vessels, to the mixers, all that plays a role in how we would size our systems. The rate at which the customer wants the product to be conveyed obviously is a big deal and we're trying to find the best way to streamline our convey runs so that we're not looping back and forth or adding a lot of distances and elbows that would impact equipment sizing.
Mike Abare:
So, when you have a chance to work with the engineering firm or somebody doing layouts on a green field, a brand-new plant, is there a time that you'd like to be part of that process? Or when do you feel is the right time for a pneumatic conveying company like Magnum Systems to get involved in the layout and design of that system?
Joel Sawalich:
Some engineering firms will already have laid some of this stuff out. They will already have determined where equipment goes and I've learned the parameters and we've taken those, laid our equipment into it, did all of our designs, going to find out that they let the HVAC company come in before we got there and they hung all of their utility pipes, all their HVAC ducting and then we have to go around it, which adds elbows, adds distances. So sometimes that's not always the best because you plan for the best and come back and do something different. But there is flexibility in what we do so that we can try to plan around that.
Mike Abare:
So what I heard certainly is we'd like to be involved early on in that process, but we also need to make sure that in the installation, that all trades are working together to make sure that the equipment goes in best practices.
Joel Sawalich:
Correct. And again, you get told this is where you're going to put it, you, your equipment, you know they even have it on all the 3D drawings, but then when you get to the field you realize the other trades have beat you to it and then you improvise. You go from there.
Mike Abare:
Yeah. I can think of a system right now where they forced us to run a pipe through an HVAC duct only to have moisture issues later on.
Joel Sawalich:
I was asked to do that one time myself and I refused because I didn't want to poke my pipe right through someone else's ducting for obvious reasons.
Mike Abare:
Yeah, yeah. Get it, get it. So what are some things when it comes to laying out a system that you take into consideration?
Joel Sawalich:
Well, I always want to know where the equipment is going in the building. Obviously, a big storage silo would set outside in a lot of instances, but when I'm getting told your hopper's going to go on the eighth floor, okay, is there any freight elevators that get it there? And then, you know, my famous problem is we sell or design an eight-foot diameter vessel, but we have a six-foot door to get it through. So a lot of times I'm already thinking ahead, you know, especially with an engineering house. If they have the drawings laid out, I see where I've got my equipment, but now I'm wondering how I'm going to get it up there. And so I'm always trying to think far enough ahead for the designers and for the installers to make sure we're not designing a system that won't fit the building.
Mike Abare:
Yeah. I know you've been involved in many plant layouts just like I have. Oftentimes one of the things I see is they've not thought about where the bulk silos go in relationship to the use points. And so they might put the silos on the other end of the building and now they're having to transfer product all the way across the plant. Can you speak a little bit to the proximity of equipment and what that might do in your thought processes for laying out a system?
Joel Sawalich:
Well, a lot of times, as you mentioned, you'll have the silos on one side, that's where the road was or the silos on the other side. Cause that's where the rail track was. But then the destination is on the farther side. So, it's how do I convince him to change that if it’s changeable? But then if it can't be now your system sizing is affected, your line sizes are bigger. Your equipment's bigger. And so it's sometimes it's you're locked. The customer says this is not negotiable, you can't move it. Other times it's, yeah, we didn't know we could, you know, this is where we thought that it would fit best. But that's also in asking better questions upfront, understanding how they're going to use the system cause that then helps us know how to put our stuff in there.
Mike Abare:
Nice. Thank you for sharing that. So, and you led a little bit into, really my next question was how does system layout start impacting the design of the system? And so an example, if we got to convey further distance, you know, what impact does that start having to the design of a system?
Joel Sawalich:
Well, it could very easily increase your line size, which then increases your blower, which increases the air. So now your filters are bigger and so everything just gets bigger because the layout isn't or wasn't efficient enough. And those are really the main points that stand out.
Mike Abare:
So, I heard bigger, bigger, bigger.
Joel Sawalich:
Dollars, dollars, dollars,
Mike Abare:
Dollars, dollars, dollars.
Joel Sawalich:
Yeah.
Mike Abare:
So having systems that are well thought through, laid out with reasonably close proximity are going to be more efficient and lower in overall asset investment or capital investment it sounds
Joel Sawalich:
Yeah, and there are some times when I've asked the customer, okay, you're going to be putting your equipment here. How are you going to use it and where will your forklift traffic come from? You know, if you bring in minor ingredients, where's your warehouse? And they're like, oh, it's 200 feet that way. Well, that's going to be hard for you to get that from there to here in a timely fashion. Can you move your warehouse here or can you move your process there? Sometimes you can't. And then you have to do time studies and figure out, can we do this? Can we design the system you need in the time you need it to be done from a production standpoint? So it's a lot of times, how are you using the space? Where is everybody going? A lot of times the customers don't think about the forklift traffic and how it's going to impact their abilities to keep making products but not getting in their own way.
Mike Abare:
And so then as we start getting into the design of systems and the impact of those designs, can you speak to the design variances between let's say a food product versus an industrial mineral or a chemical or something, and how we might treat those different?
Joel Sawalich:
Well, the only thing that I could see from a food versus a mineral project is the clean room aspect. You know, there's a lot of people that have their mixers and all their equipment just out there where everything else is being done. But in food, you need a clean, sterile or you know, just a process room that you don't have all the outside influences. I remember doing a plant years ago where a beautiful mixing room, but they were bringing all their bag goods in via a forklift from their warehouse, their dirty warehouse on a dirty pallet with dusty bags. But they brought that right into the clean. So, our conveying was going to help stop that. They weren't bringing any more minor ingredients in that way. So that would differentiate food, from a mineral app aspect.
Mike Abare:
So perhaps the better question was how do we go about designing a food system versus a non-food or a heavy industrial type system?
Joel Sawalich:
Correct. But there's always location, you know, and they, they have certain parts of the plant that are spoken for. This is where we're going to do all the processing and then all the warehousing is separate and outside.
Mike Abare:
So, as we start thinking a little bit about design and layout, you know, these days one of the things that customers really are focused on is safety, safety of the equipment, safety and their practices, processes for their employees. You know, all of those things that come into play, explosion mitigation is a big thing these days. So how does that come into play to system design and how does it impact the layout and the design, I should say.
Joel Sawalich:
Well, it would go back again to where the equipment's located because with explosion mitigation equipment, you have to make sure that you don't have that located where people will be walking. And if things do go wrong, you have an upset condition. You still have to be able to access the equipment for maintenance and repair replacement. So I'm again thinking, do I need a walkway up here? Do I need ladders? Do I need a way to get to this? How ergonomic is it for a maintenance guy to work on something? You know, I don't want to put an airlock eight feet in the air and have him be on a ladder trying to work on that. So, location, location, and location work in pneumatics as well. Right?
Mike Abare:
Right. So with explosion, mitigation, it's like you said, interferences. It could be, I mean, first of all people, that's where the priority is, right? Correct.
Joel Sawalich:
I did a job one time where they wanted the explosion panel to exit the building right outside. It was on a ceiling part or a roof part of the building. But there was an employee walkway right there. And I'm thinking if that thing blew today and you had the guys walk, you know, walking between shifts and I, I almost knew their building better than they did. Cause I'm like, you, I'm, I can do that. I don't think you want me to do that. So yeah, it's, it's how do I make sure that if an upset condition happens, that we've taken into consideration some of the things that weren't thought through.
Mike Abare:
And I know recently we had a project where they wanted it to vent directly out to their liquid oil tanks and certainly said that's not the place to vent your explosion to,
Joel Sawalich:
Well, I had a customer put one in the parking lot or near his parking lot, but it was going to blast out to the cars. So we had to do some different deflections, if you will, to not let that happen.
Mike Abare:
Not a bad idea if you want to take paying off cars, huh?
Joel Sawalich:
Yes, that's
Mike Abare:
Right. So as we start winding down this conversation today, are there any other thoughts about system design as it relates to how it would impact or the layout and how it impacts system design or any other things that should be taken into consideration?
Joel Sawalich:
Well, as we mentioned earlier, we want to be as efficient and streamlined as, you know, extra elbows in the pneumatic world seem to add to our restrictions. So trying to make nice clean lines, trying to reduce that, trying to make the most efficient system and the most efficient layout.
Mike Abare:
Great. Joel, thank you for coming on the show today. Just to our audience out there, Joel's done a great job of laying out the impact of system design. How the layouts can impact the design and how those designs start impacting the features of the system, the pricing of the system, and certainly the efficiency of those systems. So again, thank you Joel, really appreciate you coming today.
Joel Sawalich:
Thank you, sir.
Mike Abare:
And that's a wrap for this episode of AIM. Thanks for listening and thanks for joining us today. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about the topic we discussed today, feel free to reach out to us on our website or social media channels so you never miss an episode packed with valuable insights. Please join us next time as we continue to explore the ever-evolving landscape of system integration. Until then, keep aiming for success. This is Mike signing off. Good day.
