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Rail Demo
Bi-directional dual track rail loading
Location:
Nebraska City, Nebraska
Project:
New rail and barge load out
Automated equipment load out
New dual truck scales and grading
CompuWeigh Control Systems:
GMS-4000 bulkweighing control system
Elevator Automation
Allen Bradley ControlLogix PLC
SmartRead rail car RF ID system
SmartLoad continuous weighing
GMS-Truck scale workstations for inbound and outbound platform scales and grading
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.
Four scales from one computer
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.
High speed rail receiving and ship loading
Location:
Port of Grays, Oregon
Project:
New rail receiving and ship loading
Automated equipment load out
CompuWeigh Control Systems:
GMS-4000 bulkweighing control system
SmartRead rail car RF ID system
SmartLink accounting system interface
This ‘just in time’ export facility works without any storage bins! Unit train arrival is coordinated with an ocean going ship.
When the unit train arrives our SmartRead rail car RF ID system checks off each car against the Pre-Advise List sent electronically from Head Office. Cars not on the list are immediately flagged as are cars with missing tags. Our wheel sensor system counts the car axles to ensure that for every four axles we also read a tag.
To further improve the integrity of the system, there is an axle scale just beyond the dump pit. This also has a SmartRead rail car RF ID system and when the car is identified we look up its official tare weight and compare it to the weight on the axle scale. If we find a deviation, the car is manually inspected to ensure that it is completely empty. Also for cars that were not on the Pre-Advise List we ensure that the axle weight shows the full gross weight and that the car has not accidentally been emptied into the dump pit.
The GMS Wizard Reporting system provides a number of drill-down reports that show the distribution of the grain on the ship and reconciles each ship hold back to the batch and rail car.
SmartLink accounting interface is responsible for intpreting the Pre-Advise rail car data to create the In-Transit List and for providing completed transactions in both Excel and accounting format.
Multiple language support
Location:
Paraquay, South America
Project:
Truck receiving and shipping
Grading and accounting interface
CompuWeigh Control Systems:
GMS-Truck scale workstation for truck receiving
SmartLink accounting system interface
GMS has been designed so that nine foreign languages and English can be supported concurrently. All the menus, messages, screens and browse lists are shown in the required language. To ensure that IT staff can properly support their overseas customers, IT staff can see the same system running in English.
To provide increased flexibility, additional languages can be added to the system, without the need to understand English. For example to run the system in Brazil a person who spoke Portuguese and Spanish but who did not speak English could easily do this.
GMS Truck has full E.E.C. approval and is currently running in a number of European countries.
Multi-site truck processing
Location:
Woodland, California
Project:
Replace recently installed Truck and Rail Systems at five facilities
CompuWeigh Control Systems:
GMS-400 bulkweighing control system
GMS-Truck scale workstations for single and dual platform scales
SmartLink accounting system interface
Automatic interface to Dickey-john moisture meter
The customer upgraded their scale systems with another vendor’s system just four years earlier, but had to replace it because of its inflexibility, inconsistent accounting interface and lack of on-going support.
The company decided to install our GMS system at all five of their locations.
Simple Truck Weighing and Grading:
The truck driver positions his truck on the scale and then comes into the office to identify himself. The truck is weighed and graded then sent to the appropriate dump pit for unloading.
The truck returns to the scale, where the second weight is taken and the ticket issued to the driver. Using the SmartLink accounting interface the completed transaction is automatically formatted so that the data can be read by their Solomon Accounting system located at their Head Office.
More complicated Truck Weighing:
The customer has multiple locations and sometimes they need to start a transaction at one site and complete it at another. To make it even more complicated, they needed to take the tare weight from their platform scale and then send the truck over to the bulkweighing scale and load the truck to the legal maximum.
The GMS system is able to combine the weights from the platform and the bulk weighing scales and then make the transaction available over their wide area network so that when the truck arrives at another facility the transaction can be selected for final processing.
Simple Rail Loading and Receiving:
The customer typically receives 8-10 empty cars daily. The cars are manually identified, positioned under the spout and then the GMS-400 automatically loads them to their target weights. At the end of the transaction the information is sent to their accounting system using our SmartLink accounting interface.
Multiple track rail load out
Location:
St. Joseph, Missouri
Project:
Multiple rail track load out
Multiple scale truck receiving and grading
CompuWeigh Control Systems:
GMS-4000 bulkweighing control system
Three bi-directional SmartRead rail car RF id systems
SmartLoad continuous weighing
SmartGrade weighted average grade factors of cars loaded
Three GMS-Truck scale workstations for platform scales and grading
SmartLink accounting system interface
Rail Load Out:
The customer normally loads 54 cars at a time but unlike most facilities often does this on a daily basis.
With three tracks at their disposal they typically stage each track with 18 cars. The operator using our GMS-4000 bulkweighing control system then selects which track to load first and which direction he wants to pull the cars from. This establishes which SmartRead rail car RF antenna should read the rail cars. As a car passes the reader its id is captured and GMS then consults its SmartCar database to calculate the optimum amount to load into the car. This sophisticated customer ensures that the amount loaded into the car truly is the maximum allowed after taking into account special rules and individual car characteristics and not just the load limit marked on the side of the car.
As the cars are loaded, a representative sample is pulled from the grain-stream and graded in an adjacent office by State certified graders. The results are then entered into a separate GMS Grading station. The elevator manager can then monitor the overall quality of the cars loaded using our SmartGrade system, which shows him the weighted average of each factor for the cars already loaded. This allows the manager to make minor adjustments to the blend rather than work in ‘crisis mode’ at the end and be forced to ‘give away’ quality product to meet the overall unit train quality.
Truck Receiving & Grading:
The facility has three bulk weighing scales that handle inbound truck traffic. Because each scale can hold 120,000 lbs the contents of a truck easily fits in the scale so they were able to use our less expensive GMS-Truck system rather than a full blown bulk weighing system.
While the grain is being taken from the dump pit up to the the scale, a small sample is taken and the driver can watch the grading process and if the quality is satisfactory, watch the weighing process. As soon as the gross weight of the scale has been taken the ticket can be printed and the driver is on his way.
All completed GMS transactions run through the SmartLink accounting interface which correctly formats the data so it can be sent directly to the corporate accounting system.
Multiple track rail load out
Pre-advise receiving system
Location:
Mobile, Alabama
Project:
Grain Export House with multiple rail dump pits,
truck receiving and ship load out
CompuWeigh Control Systems:
GMS-3000 bulkweighing control system
GMS-Truck scale workstation for truck receiving
SmartRead rail car RF ID system
SmartCar rail car database
SmartBatch continuous weighing
SmartLink accounting system interface
Batch Rail Unload:
Their Agris accounting system sends the facility electronic files of unit trains destined for the elevator. Once a unit train arrives, the operator selects that file and the cars are automatically loaded into the GMS In-Transit list, together with their Origin Weights and Grades.
As the rail cars are emptied at the two dump pits, the SmartRead rail car RF ID system scans the cars and adds them to the batch total. Because of limited track space, often as many as eight unit trains are being unloaded simultaneously, however the SmartBatch system is able to recognize which cars belong to which batch.
At the end of a batch GMS compares the total net weight of the individual cars at the Origin with the single batch weight reported by the bulkweigher. If there is a material difference, the operator is informed and is required to reconcile the two weights before proceeding.
At this point the total weight is allocated across the cars in the batch and using the SmartLink accounting system interface the completed file is electronically sent back to their Agris system located in Ohio.
Truck Receiving:
The truck system is a standard GMS-Truck scale system that weighs inbound trucks and using the SmartLink accounting system interface exports this data for the Agris accounting system at Head Office.
Ship Loading:
The company uses our Compudraft CD-2000 bulk weighing controllers to load out to ship. These units have been in operation for ten years and continue to provide trouble free service.
RF Truck and Recipe Management
Location:
Rochester, New York
Project:
RF tag controlled inbound and outbound truck
Custom recipes for multiple compartments trucks
GMS Recipe Management
For more information please see “Wireless Grain” from Grain Journal in the Article section of Automation
CompuWeigh Control Systems:
GMS-Truck scale system for truck receiving and shipping
SmartTruck RF identification of trucks
SmartLink accounting system interface
CompuWeigh provided a whole range of weighing and PLC Automation of this facility
RF id for Trucks:
Both inbound and outbound trucks are controlled by CompuWeigh’s SmartTruck RF tag system. Before a truck can ship product from the facility it is inspected and the cubic capacity of each compartment is measured. At this time an outdoor RF tag which has an unique number is affixed to the trailer.
When a truck arrives it is positioned on the scale. The tag is read and the GMS computer immediately shows that truck’s transactions at the facility in ‘most recent order’. This makes it very easy for the operator to determine which order the truck is fulfilling today.
Once the weight has been taken, the truck proceeds to the dump pits or load out area. Since the facility handles feed and fertilizer it is essential that there is no cross contamination so prior to loading or unloading the trucks pass another SmartTruck reader to ensure that they are at the correct location.
Recipe Management:
When a truck arrives to pick up feed, the operator consults the Recipe Management section of GMS and selects the appropriate recipes. Because each truck has been previously audited, GMS instructs the batching equipment to make precisely the right amount to fit into the compartments of the truck. The system can handle multiple recipes on one truck.
To reduce errors, the truck returns to the truck scale after being loaded and the gross minus tare weights are compared with the net weight loaded by the bulk scale that weighed the formula. If there is a meaningful difference the truck cannot leave the facility until a supervisor has approved the deviation.
Split customer accounts
Location:
Fairfax, Kansas
Project:
Split Accounts for truck receiving
Grading and accounting interface
CompuWeigh Control Systems:
GMS-Truck scale workstation for truck receiving
SmartLink accounting system interface
One of the complexities of truck receiving is that sometimes the contents of the truck need to be allocated to multiple owners.
GMS provides four ways of handling split accounts:
- “Percentage splits on the fly” where the operator creates percentage allocations for each owner
- “Bushel splits on the fly” where operator each owner is given a certain number of bushels. Since the total number of bushels on the truck is not known when the truck arrives, the last designated owner receives the balance
- “Preset allocation” is where the manager enters the split account allocations in GMS ahead of time and the operator just selects the appropriate split
- “Accounting interface” which allows the Accounting system to send customer contract file at any time to GMS. When GMS notices a new file it automatically updates its customer file, including split information.
When truck transactions are completed GMS SmartLink prepares the data in the correct format so that it can be electronically transmitted to accounting.
Two scales proportionally filling one rail car
Location:
Salina, Kansas
Project:
Loading one rail car with two bulk weighing scales
CompuWeigh Control Systems:
GMS-4000 bulkweighing control with special program
Two CD-4000 bulkweighing control systems
Two audit printers & one certificate printer
Customer Request:
The customer needed to increase the rail load out speed by using two scales to fill each rail car. The customer also wanted to be able to use each scale independently, if required.
CompuWeigh Solution:
CompuWeigh provides a number of multiple scale solutions including up to twelve scales running on one GMS computer.
For this customer we used our GMS system controlling two of our highly accurate CD-4000 bulkweighing control systems. The operator enters the total order amount and the percent to be loaded from each scale. GMS then sends the appropriate instructions to each of the CD-4000s which then proceed to weigh out that amount. Each controller maintains its own audit trail print out and at the end of the order the GMS computer prints out the rail certificate.
When required the system allows each scale controller to process its own order and print out its own certificate.