Aggregates Manager Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/619545
Keep Trucks Moving OPERATIONS M oving customer trucks in and out of aggregate plants can sometimes seem like herding cats, but with some pre-planning, a bit of technolo- gy, and the right equipment, the process can be streamlined into a smooth choreographed dance. Pre-planning usually comes into play when the plant is designed. "When we designed the new plant in 2007, we tried to design it with traffi c ways and versatility," says Tim Gowens, plant manager at Vul- can Materials Co.'s Kennesaw Quarry in Georgia. He explains that 90 percent of the time, a one-way zone is created on the travel ways in the plant, which requires trucks to come in one way and exit another. "That allows for more adequate loading and getting the trucks in and out on a steady basis." Technology has played a big part in making it possible for trucks to get in and out of a plant much faster and easier. Ticketing kiosks, comput- er systems, RFID tags, cameras, and remote printers all help save time by speeding up the loadout process. According to Don Fiedler, product manager at Rice Lake Weighing Sys- tems, a ticketing kiosk plays a big role. It keeps the truck driver from having to leave the truck to check in at a scale house or pick up a ticket. "The driver can take the ticket off the kiosk, so he's not walking around the property," Fiedler says, adding that the kiosk also allows the driver to communicate with scale house personnel. "Whether he's going to be prompted through the ticketing process or needs direc- tions, the kiosk provides an interface between quarry personnel and the driver." Gowens says improvements recently made at his scale house, which included the installation of a remote ticketing system, have great- ly improved the speed of loadout. "It's a lot faster going through the scales now than what it used to be," he says. "We haven't had a real back up at the scales since we put it in." The right equipment is essential for the job. Loadout might be han- dled the old-fashioned way at some plants by a loader and loader oper- ator, but there's nothing old-fash- ioned about the loaders today and the bucket scales that many of them use. Silos, or loadout bins, offer a great alternative to using loaders, says Robert Cote, product manager for Dolese Bros. He explains that the scales on loaders are calibrated, but accuracy can be affected by many things, such as weather. "The benefi t of silos is that they load almost ex- actly," he says. "They get an empty weight right there and then load to each truck's maximum weight. That's a real effi ciency for us." AGGREGATES MANAGER In this high-tech age, it might seem old school to use a loader to load material into trucks, but even loaders have become high-tech. Some operations have in- stalled computers in their loaders, which allows the operator to access a truck's number, know how long it has been in the plant, what its target weight is, and what product it is supposed to get. Many aggregate producers have bucket scales on their loaders to help take the guesswork out of loading the correct weight. With the scales, a loader operator can load to within 200 pounds of the desired weight. Computer systems, RFID tags, cameras, remote printers, and traffi c-control lights have all played a big part in making it possible for trucks to get in and out of a plant more quickly and easily. Computer systems and soft- ware read the RFID tags that most trucks are equipped with today so that personnel can identify the truck, the company, and what product is desired. Traffi c lights at the scale allow scale house operators to control traffi c at the scale, which is usually the most congested part of an operation. New technology Computers and scales on loaders 1 4