Bulk Material Handling Equipment Design and Automation
What are the primary factors influencing machine design and process automation specification in the bulk material handling industry? Operator safety, of course, comes to mind as an essential priority. Yet, even with operator safety, varied equipment applications will have differing requirements. Perhaps a good place to start when addressing operator safety would be the ANSI B11.TR3-2000 Technical Report on Risk Assessment and Risk Reduction. However, as the bulk material handling marketplace becomes more global, and European influences continue to lead the unification process of international standards, simply relying on domestic standards will clearly not be sufficient. In fact, global organizations purchasing U.S.-made equipment for their U.S. processing or packaging operations are commonly requiring international standards for such equipment.
The issue of identifying appropriate codes and standards reaches far beyond the single aspect of operator safety. And, regulatory codes and standards are but two of the many machine design and automation factors bulk material handling OEMs and end users must address. From the OEM's perspective, what about mechatronics as a whole? From the end user's perspective, what about matters of overall equipment effectiveness, or sustainability?
Bulk material handling manufacturers must take the initiative and proactively bring products to market that will meet or exceed the standards of the marketplace (domestic or international); both from a regulatory perspective and from a functional perspective.
NTEP-certified Weighing on Bulk Bag Filling Systems
There seems to be an increased recognition throughout the industry of the process advantages, and financial value, of NTEP-certified weigh systems used in bulk bag filling and bulk container filling applications. NTEP may have once been perceived as only appropriate for pharma or other applications with cGMP; but, outside of that, accurate weighing was good enough. The industry is now recognizing, regardless of the application, accurate weighing is only of real value when it can be done consistently and repeatedly, and with the assurance that the weigh values are certified accurate. There are obvious advantages to precision weigh accuracy in bulk bag filling systems such as reduced material waste and eliminating re-work. NTEP-certified bulk bag filling systems provide those advantages plus reduced labor allocation, improved process optimization, and downstream (or customer-side) assurance that incoming packages are process-ready. NTEP-certified weighing is available for bulk bag filling systems as well as other bulk container filling systems, including drums, totes, gaylords, and others.