Reprinted from GRAIN JOURNAL March/April 2020 Issue
Alan Steiner
Sales Manager
Hoffmann Inc.
Muscatine, IA
“We continue to see trends toward larger capacities and increased material handling rates. At Hoffmann, we continue to improve designs to accommodate high-speed loading and unloading. With labor and energy/utilities being large operating expenses, we see design considerations being made to operate more efficiently.
“We also see a trend in more non-GMO commodities. In some instances, our clients are looking to upgrade their systems to accommodate staging multiple unit-train capacities of different GMO and non-GMO commodities to ship in the same week.
“There continues to be an emphasis on safety. As a design-build contractor, safety expectations, as they relate to our construction site activities and facility operations, are of extreme importance. As far as safety in project design, we try to get our clients’ environmental, health, and safety (EHS) teams involved up front to ensure that the necessary standards are met for each application. It also gives the clients’ EHS personnel input on preferred brands and types of equipment being incorporated into the design.
“Design trends also include increased levels of automation that benefits safety and improved operating efficiencies.
“Given the trends of increased speeds in facility operations and capacities, we recommend completing a comprehensive structural analysis of existing facilities prior to making any final decisions. We believe in gathering all necessary information in advance, in order to make informed decisions on facility upgrades by exposing potential concerns. We also believe that a proactive approach identifying these issues will lead to better overall performance of the facilities, as well as position our clients for potential changes, future expansions, and upgrades.”
Chris Wortmann
Owner
NOHR Wortmann Engineering
Yankton, SD
“For us on the design side, it has been a continuation of the same – higher capacities at a faster rate in bigger structures.
“My office also does a lot of troubleshooting, and what I find disturbing is that there are grain companies getting into construction arrangements without a written contract. I run into this a couple times a year. This causes real problems when issues occur later.
“In this day and age, I would expect anything being built to have a written contract. Big bins, high-capacity equipment, and automation are big investments. Not having a written contract is asking for trouble, and the folks entering into these arrangements are not protecting the companies they represent.
“Another disturbing trend on construction projects is a lack of oversight. Having someone qualified to watch over that job is only part of the process. That person also needs authority to hold the contractors responsible while things are being built. We encourage owners to bring in a third party, be it an engineer or construction manager, someone outside of the company. It’s good practice to have somebody on site to watch over the project, making sure everything goes smoothly. It does cost extra, but that cost is insignificant compared to the overall project cost, and it has the potential to save tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Problems arise from people trusting each other a little too much and assuming they have each other’s best interests in mind. Just because you’re familiar with the contractor doesn’t mean you should skip the contract.
“The other trend we’re seeing is automation resulting in fewer employees. Fewer employees means fewer eyes to see problems as they come up. This also means there are likely fewer people on hand who are qualified to fix those problems, resulting in longer downtime. It’s hard for companies to keep up with regular inspections, maintenance, and upkeep when they only have two or three employees on site at a time.”
Dub Johnson
Sales Manager
McPherson Concrete Storage Systems
McPherson, KS
“I think one of the trends that we’re seeing is everybody looking at bigger storage tanks. It used to be that a 300,000-bushel tank a was fairly common size, and now everybody wants to be bigger than that, with some building tanks for a million bushels. A lot of this is due to economics, but it is kind of strange to see.
“The two trends in the grain industry that we’re seeing as far as design and construction goes are everything being built larger and everything is designed faster to load and unload.
“The driver for these changes isn’t even so much the advancement of technology as it is just customer demand. Customers want to be unloaded and get back to the field faster so they can continue harvesting. So if your elevator can unload faster than the competitors, you’re going to get the grain.”
Loren Field
Executive Vice President
Younglove Construction, LLC
Sioux City, IA
“For the past 20 years, we have designed feed mills to receive unit trains of grain and 25-car units of soybean meal. That hasn’t really changed. An important trend has been a bigger emphasis on logistics: just-in-time deliveries, making facilities and the production match their needs very tightly, and then getting ingredients to the facility just in time.
“Another trend is facility owners turning over their inventory a lot more frequently now. Commodities don’t sit in storage very long. They either ship it, or they receive and process it. Grain doesn’t sit very long.
“And, of course, the facilities and the equipment are growing in their size and capacity. That’s a trend that’s been happening for decades.
“There also is more use of process controls, and there’s getting to be more use of statistical analysis with the information that the process control systems provide.
“We’re also seeing more RFID readers used for capturing weighments electronically to speed receipts and truck flow. Often, they don’t even print a ticket. If the truck goes across the scale, they have captured the weight, they go unload, and they’re gone.
“Another trend that owners are wanting at grain and feed facilities is more sanitary construction with no ledges or collection points.
“Lastly, more owners are actually taking into consideration future expansion when designing facilities. They’re designating space for another production line or bucket elevator. They’re thinking ahead, so you don’t have to use a shoehorn and grease to use special, one-of-a-kind equipment for the expansion.”