Spiroflow Solution Continued
– Model C1-2 Bulk Bag Fillers incorporate an NTEP approved weigh platform and integral powered rollers for fast and easy removal of filled bags.
– Once filled, the bulk bags were powered off the fillers onto gravity roller accumulating conveyors where they awaited removal by a forklift truck.
– Once manufactured, the Bulk Bag Fillers were placed on a skid and delivered by truck within a five-day delivery time to the Kenai site.
– A start-up technician was also sent to the site for two weeks to help with additional customization of the equipment and training during start-up.
“We appreciated the extra effort by Spiroflow since we were not familiar with bulk bag fillers,” Bradford noted. “We needed training too.”
The Results
According to Jeff Deese, Vice President of the Alaska Division for AIMM Technologies, the facility was in operation for 14 weeks from the end of March to mid-July in 2008. The Kenai facility had 10 people working 8-hour shifts, four of whom were at the bagging station.
– The facility averaged 300 filled bags per shift, reaching a high of 404 bags on one of the shifts.
– Three hundred bags per shift is an average of 19 bags per hour per filling machine.
– In total 36,000 tons of sulfur was recovered in 27,000 bulk bags.
Deese said that customer support from Spiroflow was phenomenal:
“Not only did they send a service technician on-site for two weeks to install and start-up the system as well as to train us how to use it, the system was delivered on time.” Deese added. “Company engineers were easy to work with and available 24 hours a day – an important feature due to the time difference in Alaska. We couldn’t have done this without Spiroflow’s help and availability.”
– Bags were taken from the storage facility in one of four trucks that moved bags continuously to the Port of Homer.
– The sulfur was sold at Homer to a third party who shipped it to an inland river port in China where it is being used mainly as fertilizer.
– Upon completion of the contract at Kenai, the bulk bag filling facility was dismantled and reassembled at another sulfur recovery site in Canada.
– It was converted to handle 4,000lb/ 1800kg bags instead of the 3,300 lb/ 1500kg bags.
