Pit & Quarry, October 2017
OPERATIONS Three conveyors angle upward into the Walstrum Quarrys secondary tertiary plant which was designed vertically owing to space constraints primary a more pleasant one Both plants are fitted with programmable logic controllers PLCs that increase their uptime although the design of the secondary tertiary is a bit more sophisticated For us the automation isnt to reduce the size of our labor force but to enable it says Kent Brown senior electrician at Albert Frei Sons You see companies try to implement a lot of automation to reduce their labor force but thats not our goal On the secondary tertiary plant for example the operator consumes data related to motor amperages material volumes and more The operations touch of a mouse system empowers the operator with an assortment of data in an easy to read form He can take information averages feed rates and plant production data to make decisions that allow the plant to run more efficiently Brown says The same applies at Albert Frei Sons primary except the operator there reacts with the push of buttons The wiring behind the controls goes to a PLC and the PLC makes the decisions on the output of the plant Brown says It lets you monitor for safety and other issues If you have a conveyor shut down for example it will shut down everything behind it that feeds that conveyor so you dont have big messes In the rare event that a PLC fails Albert Frei Sons has a second check in place to avoid plant issues Each conveyor has a speed wheel Albert Jr says The speed wheel measures motion Most of the drives here are V belt driven its a motor belt and gearbox Say the V belts break the motors still running but the conveyor stops moving The computer thinks the starter is still engaged but the belt is not operating Well now you have that second check If the belt is not moving the speed wheel senses it alerts you and shuts everything else down behind it Before belts could continue to stall and create spillages Then youre spending an hour or two cleaning it up and youre pushing your conveyors later to try to catch up Albert Jr says Its little things like speed wheels and big things like the companys willingness to strategically invest in equipment technology and skilled labor that make Albert Frei Sons a competitive outfit despite its home in the mountains I want to get our guys whatever tools they need to keep those bins full Albert Jr says P Q MORE TO COME Look for additional coverage based on Pit Quarrys 2017 visit to Albert Frei Sons in an upcoming edition www kpijci com pitandquarry com October 2017 PIT QUARRY 19
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