An Easier Way to Dump Bags – A Case Study

A little over a year ago Mike Monti, Business and Operations Manager, also wore the hat of product blender. He would manually load 160 pounds of raw polymer powder into a 55-gallon rotary drum mixer to blend color recipes for the company’s unique thermal spray coating. Mike Monti would often think that there must be an easier way to dump bags.

The coating Monti’s company created is for swimming pools and spas and resists chipping, peeling and scratching. The company manufactures both the materials and equipment used to apply the fast-curing, durable eco-friendly thermoplastic coating to fiberglass, aluminum, and existing masonry finishes.

The Problem: Seeking an Easier Way to Dump Bags

Scooping 5 pounds at a time, “32 back-breaking scoops,” says Monti, was time intensive and created dust with each scoop. When nearing the bottom of the drum, the reach inside the drum to retrieve the remaining product required long arms and standing on toes.

After the product was blended the process began again, you would then scoop blended product into 40-pound boxes. This didn’t create the same amount of dust as loading but still required body contortions to get the last bit of material from the bottom of the drum. 

“We knew at some point we needed to mix in larger batches because of our rapid growth. To stay ahead of our orders, we wanted a large-scale blender but then we had to come up with a way to load it,” says Monti. “There was no way to get six 160-pound barrels dumped into a blender 6 or 7 feet up, it had to be done automatically.”

The Solution

Vac-U-Max, a conveying systems manufacturer, configures systems specific to each application. They provide the power source, filters, controls and blender covers with product inlet and vacuum outlet. Because of the unique needs for this company, they decided to go with Vac-U-Max due to their customization abilities.

In addition to loading the blender, they also needed a way to get the blended product from the blender and into packages within a specific budget. Rather than purchasing two vacuum conveying systems, Vac-U-Max suggested a dual-purpose system that uses the same conveyor system to load and unload the blender.  

The system designed uses a 3hp pump and is configured to convey 3000 pounds an hour. “The equipment is somewhat custom,” says Monti, and was “very easy to use from the beginning. The equipment arrived with drawings and flow charts and was easy to install. The few technical questions we did have were able to be answered over the phone.”

Before purchasing the equipment, samples were sent of its materials to Vac-U-Max to test, free of charge.  The fully functional state-of-the-art 6,000-square foot test and demonstration facility is equipped to conduct a plethora of vacuum conveying trials to simulate the actual conditions at a customer’s site.

The Results

The system now allows mixing 1000 pounds at a time. “That would have taken a good 3 days to weigh out, blend, get packaged and on the shelves. Now, we can do it in one day,” he says, “It’s a straightforward process.”

Because the system pulls the powder pneumatically from the drums into the blender, there is no longer any dust released into the environment during the process. And any carry-over is instead captured into an airtight vessel that preserves product integrity. This allows the material to be re-used or be safely disposed of.

After the materials are blended, the same vacuum conveying system used to load the blender is connected to the bottom of the blender. Then the material is metered by volume into a collection hopper. When it reaches a predetermined level, the system stops conveying and dumps the material into a box.  Now, instead of scooping out 40 pounds at a time, they only must make small adjustments if the box is heavy or light before sealing it. “We can now run 25 boxes at one time.” says Monti.

And at the end of the day or between switching materials, the conveying systems can be easily cleaned. They are readily accessible for cleaning and can be equipped with casters, allowing them to service more than one blender. Not only that, but the employees also have the energy to keep everything clean and operating as it should!

Do you have a process that could use some fine-tuning? Create your own custom made process! Start working with Apex and Vac-U-Max today – call us now!

Call: 763-777-9525  Email: Sales@ApexSolutionsMN.com

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