Four scales from one computer

gms_4scales

Location:
St. Louis, Missouri

Project:
Controlling 4 bulk scales from one computer

CompuWeigh Control Systems:
(4) DWC-400 bulk weighing controllers integrated with the GMS control system
SmartLink accounting system interface to AS/400
OTP-3000 Truck outside ticket printer

Introduction:
The customer substantially upgraded their operations by adding two new bins, basement reclaim conveyors, a new bulkweighing scale and leg, and a long Hi-Roller conveyor from the house to the barge and rail loadout area.

The customer also upgraded their receiving operation by adding a second truck scale and installing our GMS truck and grading system to improve speed, accuracy and integration to their AS/400 accounting system.

Rail & Barge Load Out:
The new bulk weighing scale is controlled by our state of the art GMS-4000 controller. Because of limited track space, cars are loaded on alternate tracks that are under the control of our SmartRead rail car RF id system with dual antennas.

Due to the length of the conveyor belt from the house, we provided our Elevator Automation system to ensure that the conveyor is correctly purged, grain is loaded to the correct track and all equipment is working within design specs.

Truck Receiving and Grading:
The truck system consists of an inbound scale that is controlled by our GMS-Truck scale system. During off-peak periods, this workstation also handles the grading process but during harvest a dedicated GMS grading computer is used.

The outbound scale is handled by another GMS-Truck workstation and to ensure that the scale never becomes a bottleneck, one of our OTP-3000 outside ticket printers has been installed 120 feet ahead of the scale so that by the time the truck arrives at the printer, the ticket is ready for collection. The printer contains an extra large roll of paper and tickets are semi-cut so that a hard pull by the driver only delivers his ticket and not a 100 feet of paper.

At the end of each transaction the completed information runs through our SmartLink accounting interface system that exports the data so it is correctly formatted for the IBM AS/400 accounting system.

Barge Loading:
The company used our Remote Operating System so that when the GMS-4000 is not being used to load rail cars, it is available for the barge loading operation. This double duty use of the scale control equipment reduced the overall cost of the system.