Discover how to streamline inefficient processes and meet health and safety goals with pneumatic transport and packaging lines with Dave Wollenberg, Magnum Systems test lab manager, and Mike Abare, Magnum Systems technical sales manager. Learn practical strategies to optimize operations, reduce failures and enhance workplace safety. Tune in to AIM and revolutionize your processes for increased efficiency and compliance. It’s a don’t-miss episode if you’re struggling with inefficient, failure-prone, and iffy-safe processes.
Transcript
Mike Abare:
Welcome to Magnum Systems Podcast, where we'll aim to dive deep into the world of A for automate, I for integrate, M for manufacture. I'm your host, Mike Abare, and I'll be bringing you expert interviews, thought-provoking discussions, and real-world case studies that shed light on the latest trends and developments of systems integration. Whether you're a seasoned professional who's seen it all, or just curious about manufacturers who are revolutionizing their operations, this podcast is your one source resource. So, sit back, relax as we aim to cover all the challenges, automation and integration is solving today. Let's do this.
Mike Abare:
Hello. Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Dave Wollenberg to our show. Dave, would you take a moment to share your background and expertise with the audience today?
Dave Wollenberg:
Yeah, my name's Dave Wollenberg, and I've been with Magnum Systems since 2001. I am an engineer by training. I've had several different positions within the company and right now my current position is test lab specialist, so that encompasses pneumatic conveying testing and packaging testing.
Mike Abare:
Today, we brought you here so we could talk about the features and benefits of pneumatic conveying, and I know from my experience and certainly from your experience that pneumatic conveying isn't everything that people think it is. Will you just give us a brief definition or overview of what pneumatic conveying is?
Dave Wollenberg:
Well, pneumatic conveying encompasses moving material in a closed pipeline with air. There are different types of pneumatic conveying. There's dilute phase, and we can do that in pressure and vacuum. And, there's a dense phase, and we can do that in pressure and vacuum. And, depending on what type of outcome you want to have would be which one of those that we would pick.
Mike Abare:
So, you're telling me depending on the product, that it may vary whether we go dilute or dense phase and could also vary whether it's vacuum or pressure. That's right. What specifically determines which way you want to go? Is it product characteristic? Where do we start with system design based on what the products are?
Dave Wollenberg:
Well, products do matter. So first off, if we're trying to minimize the amount of damage to the convey system, we would first consider dense phase conveying or if we're trying not to tear the material up, that would be another reason to go to dense phase. Besides those two, we would be looking at dilute phase pressure versus vacuum. Pressure systems work better if you pick up from one point and can deliver to multiple points. And, vacuum is just the opposite of that.
Mike Abare:
So, when you say work better, is that an energy efficiency? Is that just the ability to deliver product from one point to multiple points in a pressure or versus multiple pickup points to one destination in a vacuum? Break that down for me a little further.
Dave Wollenberg:
Well basically if you've got a system and you need to go to multiple different points in a pressure system, I can go from where I'm picking up, you know, to as many different locations as you want. In a vacuum system you would have to have air at all of those different destinations. You would have to have a vacuum source at all those different destinations. If it's pressure, I've got the source at the beginning of the system. So, it's much, much easier and less costly to do it that way. And, it's the opposite for vacuum conveying.
Mike Abare:
Gotcha. So, when we start talking about system design, I know our customers are looking at ease and expansion, ease of installation, ease of maintenance. Can you speak to that?
Dave Wollenberg:
Yeah, well pneumatic conveying is fairly simple. There are basically two different things in a pneumatic conveying system that wear down or have moving components in it. And, that would be the air delivery system, which is the blower and the pump. And, then you have an airlock, which we would use to introduce the material into the system. Those are pretty much the only two working components. We do have slide diverter valves and things like that, but these would be components that would experience wear. So, the ease of maintenance would be just that those are the two things that you'd really need to focus on. And, if you had to buy spares, put things on the shelf, there's not as many things to determine. I'm talking about this versus like a mechanical system where you may have conveyors and things like that. There may be multiple, maybe hundreds of different pieces that are moving and you would have to have parts for and be able to maintain.
Mike Abare:
So, how does the environment impact the design of a pneumatic convey system?
Dave Wollenberg:
Well, I guess it depends on what the customer wants their material to be exposed to. So, the nice thing about a pneumatic conveying system is, is that we can control the environment that's in there and what that does is that helps us improve sanitation. So, you've got material moving in a pipeline, it's not out in the atmosphere. It keeps your housekeeping in better order, minimizes cleanup time. It's also an improved hygiene because it's not exposed to the outside world typically. And, it can improve the product quality. And, what I mean by that is, let's say that your product is hydroscopic, which means that it wants to absorb water. So, if the air outside is humid and we can control that humidity in the system, we can keep that humidity from getting to your product. There's also a safety component to it. So, if you've got a material that's fairly volatile and when I say volatile I'm talking about, you know, it has an explosive tendency or your insurance company that you deal with is concerned about that. So, we can do controls in the systems to be able to mitigate those explosive properties and control those systems. Even if there was to be an accident, we'd have equipment in place that would be able to help with that.
Mike Abare:
So, yeah. And you just hit on a big topic, explosion protection or explosion safety. Tell me how a pneumatic system reduces fugitive dust compared to a chain type system. Drag and conveys type system or, or even like you had mentioned earlier, mechanical type systems.
Dave Wollenberg:
Well, compared to mechanical systems, it's kind of a night and day thing since it's not exposed to the environment. You know, obviously a mechanical conveyor, there could be product falling off of it, you know, that kind of thing. As far as some of the other systems, I mean depending on how clean or what the cleanliness level is that they can need, that can also affect what we would choose the type of conveying. If you choose a vacuum system, all air is coming into the system, so there is no leakage. There's no product getting out of the system. Now a pressure system can leak, but typically when it's set up and it's set up right, it does not leak.
Mike Abare:
Right. Great. And, then let's talk a little bit about pneumatic systems and do they offer savings for bulk materials because I'm no longer having to buy in 50-pound bags or 2000-pound bulk-bags. Tell me about pneumatic systems and how they play into material savings.
Dave Wollenberg:
Well, I'm not a buyer of raw materials, so I don't know how much better your pricing is when you buy in bulk. I assume it's considerably better. But the other thing is, on the labor side, it can be extremely effective. So, like if you were to receive stuff in a rail car and you can unload that rail car almost, I don't want to call it automatic, but it unloads itself. You don't have to have a bunch of people dealing with that where if you were to buy the stuff, say in super-sacks or even 50-pound bags, there's a lot of labor tied up in being able to get that stuff from those bags back into the system.
Mike Abare:
And, labor's a big thing as you know, these days with the work environment the way it is. It's unfortunate, but you know, if an employee doesn't show up for work, guess what? They're not making product. And so, what you just mentioned is huge, being able to do the movement of materials with less labor. So, thank you for sharing that. What else should we know about pneumatic systems? As far as how they can benefit our customers?
Dave Wollenberg:
Well the nice thing about a pneumatic conveying system is, is typically we can install it in and around the equipment that they already have. That's not true of a lot of systems. We don't need a green field to be able to start work with it. The components typically are up and out of the way. So, the convey line can be hung up high in the rafters out of the way, so it's not consuming any space, not, you know, making forklifts so that they have to reroute… those kinds of things. And, the other components are typically suspended above the existing components that you have. I mean that's just how the system works and that kind of plays into if you decide that you're going to do a move inside of your building and you have to move something, it's fairly easy to do. You reroute the pipe, you move the equipment over with it and then you're there. You can also add and take things away from the system. So, if we needed to add additional destinations or additional pickup points, that's fairly easy to do and you can tie it into the existing system without spending a whole lot of money and without having to tear out what you have now.
Mike Abare:
Are there any energy savings using pneumatic systems over other type of mechanical systems?
Dave Wollenberg:
There can be. There's probably a sweet point in there for every system, of how long or how far you want to convey. But, I would imagine that if you're trying to convey 300 or 400 feet that a pneumatic conveying system would be much, much more efficient. But tying into that, one of the nice things about it too is having those less components on there, we can keep the uptime of the system there. In other words, if you've only got one component, say the blower and maybe the airlock that's down there, that can stop you from making the money that you need to make, right, you can actually mitigate that by, we can add another blower. You can actually use that to help you with maintenance. So, if you decide I'm going to work on this blower, you don't have to shut your whole system down, you just switch to the other blower. They can work on that blower, and then they can continue on and move forward from there.
Mike Abare:
Great. That's good stuff. So, if I were to summarize all of this, Dave, sounds like with pneumatic conveying systems, there's a lot of flexibility around design that we can take into consideration. First of all, footprint, ease of installation, designed really specifically to the customer's need, and even potentially, future needs. We can offer the customer a controlled environment to make sure that their products are not being degraded or mishandled, as well as we can make sure that we're addressing the safety issues in a plant with fugitive dust, explosivity concerns, and with what you shared, reduction in labor and potentially reduction in bulk ingredient pricing.
Dave Wollenberg:
That's right.
Mike Abare:
Great. I'm Mike Abare. You've been listening to Dave Wollenberg from Magnum Systems. Really appreciate you coming today.
Mike Abare:
And, that's a wrap for this episode of AIM. Thanks for listening and thanks for joining us today. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about the topic we discussed today, feel free to reach out to us on our website or social media channels so you never miss an episode packed with valuable insights. Please join us next time as we continue to explore the ever-evolving landscape of system integration. Until then, keep aiming for success. This is Mike signing off. Good day.
