Mar 23, 2017
Mar 22, 2017
Robot helper uses perfect precision to prepare pallets
PLAINVIEW, Minn. —When the Zabel brothers started up their seed company 75-plus years ago, they probably never imagined that one of their descendants, Mike Zabel, would install a robot to help in the sacking process.
This is a far cry from the procedures practiced by brothers Arnold and Clarence Zabel decades ago. Back then, much of the work was done with man or tractor power. Farmers came to the farm near Plainview with wagons pulled by tractors to get the seed needed for the next season's crop or to bring the harvested seeds to sell back to the Zabel brothers.
Now, giant semi tractor-trailer rigs pull into the farmyard and Mike deftly loads pallets of seeds with a forklift.
The seed company focuses on small grains.
"Zabel Seeds is the second largest producer of oat seed in Southern Minnesota and largest producer of Royal barley in the world," according to its website.
The company produces and sells soybeans from Stine Seed company and perennial grasses, alfalfa and cover crops through its association with Legacy Seeds, Saddle Butte Ag, Inc., Werner Farm Seed and Alforex Seeds.
Converting the seeds from 40,000–pound truckloads to 50-pound sacks is a labor-intensive process with many steps the company must follow to maintain its certification as a licensed seed labeler in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota. Zabel serves as a board member on the Southeast Minnesota chapter of the Midwest Forage Association and the board chairman of the Minnesota Crop Improvement Association.
Zabel Seeds selects plant varieties from university breeding programs including North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois. To maintain the company's certification, inspectors visit the facility at least annually; one from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and another from the Minnesota Crop Improvement Association.
Last fall, the company partners — Zabel, his wife Kim, his father David and mother Linda, and David's cousin Don Borgschatz and his wife Anne — decided to invest in a robot from the German company Kuka, after researching industrial robots since the winter of 2013-2014.
Between then and the time the robot was installed, Zabel had to upgrade the electrical power to the farm to three-phase, change technicians and change robots. An engineer from KC Robotics, Inc. spent four days finalizing the robot's movement parameters. The robot was pre-programmed before it arrived on the farm.
How it works
Zabel fits a brown paper bag onto the chute on an electronic bag-filling scale leading from a grain bin and in six seconds, it is full of 50 pounds of grain. He adjusts the bag's opening and slaps on a label before the stitching machine plying blue and white threads closes the bag. Then the bag moves along the conveyor belt to the next station, where it must change its direction of travel and fall flat in a carefully controlled way.
Zabel has figured out a system using rollers and a pneumatic cylinder that gently forces the bag to fall forward and land on the conveyor belt leading to the robot's receiving conveyor. The bag travels up a slight incline to a roller conveyor, where small guides keep it nudged into its ideal position under the Kuka's bent, forked "hands."
When the bag reaches its destination, an optical sensor stops the conveyor and lets the robot know a bag is available. This shows up as a red dot of light on the bag. The Kuka arm reaches down and gently picks it up.
Then the machine swings around to the waiting pallet and drops the bag to form a perfectly stacked full pallet of seed. The robot knows where each of the bags must go so the full pallet of seeds is perfectly level.
Zabel has stacked pallets three high in the warehouse. And on each pallet, all the labels always face out. How does that happen? When a bag comes rolling down the conveyor belt, the label is always in the upper left corner.
It's part of the programming for the Kuka, said Zabel, showing drawings of bag positions he made for each layer of each pallet. These drawings were used to help program the robot. Labels must face out for easy reading by warehouse handlers, truckers and farmers alike. The Kuka easily twirls the bags so they not only end up in the proper position in their respective layer, but the labels are always facing out.
The robot is programmed to stack two pallets before Zabel has to stop and use his forklift to ferry the pallets to the warehouse where they are stacked three-high to wait for a purchaser.
Labels: sacrosanct for the seed business
Because Zabel Seeds is a certified dealer, each printed label is consecutively numbered and each label must be accounted for.
Every bag in each 80,000-pound "lot" of seeds that Zabel handles is identifiable by the label sewn onto it. The labels change with each lot.
Besides multiple lots, there are multiple varieties of seeds. Between each variety, Zabel must clean every nook and cranny of the seed-feeding chutes and bin.
The floors are swept and vacuumed and everything must be spic and span before the processing of the next variety begins.
The Kuka doesn't help with the cleaning, but it does preserve Zabel's back and shoulders.
And, "it has increased the handling efficiency over 400 percent," he said.
The Zabels think it may be the best investment the company has made in years. Because of the seasonal nature of the business, qualified laborers are difficult to find, and it allows the family-owned company to keep producing top-quality seed without the effects of the bag- stacking labor.
Mar 17, 2017
WIN two tickets to our Gin Tasting Evenings (Mums welcome!)
Fancy treating Mum to an evening sipping gin in our Victorian Bottle & Glass Inn? Here's your chance!
Win a fabulous evening for you and your Mum at our Bottle & Glass Gin Tasting Evening (6pm – 10pm, 25 March) – tapas nibbles, vintage music and cosy roaring fires included! To enter, please visit our Facebook or Twitters pages and share/comment or retweet.
Mother’s Day Competition Terms & Conditions
- Prize includes TWO tickets to Black Country Living Museum’s MOTHER’S RUIN GIN TASTING EVENINGS on 25 MARCH (6PM – 10PM) – see https://bclm.co.uk/events/mothers-ruin--gin-tasting-evening/3901.htm for more information
- Open to UK residents aged 18 and over, you must be able to produce a valid form of ID (staff have the right to refuse service without official proof of age)
- Competition will run from 17 March 2017 at 19:30 until 23 March 2017 at 11:00am
- To enter you must like and reply/comment to the Facebook post or retweet the Twitter post (@BCLivingMuseum or https://www.facebook.com/bclivingmuseum/)
- One winner will be chosen at random and notified either via a status update, a reply to their post, a Tweet or an announcement on the Museum’s website (or all of the aforementioned)
- The prize is not transferable or exchangeable and cannot be redeemed for cash or any other form of compensation.
- This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by Facebook and Facebook is not liable for anything related to this competition
Mar 16, 2017
New concrete handling ‘ticket’ aims to give farmers peace of mind
A new concrete handling initiative aims to give farmers and the general public peace of mind that work being carried out on their property is to a quality standard.
The ‘Concrete Ticket’, an initiative by the Irish Concrete Society, aims to promote excellence in concrete handling practices.
The initiative, which was launched recently by the Minister of State for Housing and Urban Renewal, Damien English, will see concrete operatives in Ireland offered a formally recognised education and guidance course on working with concrete.
The Concrete Ticket aims to ensure that concrete construction is carried out to European and Irish standards by operatives with the necessary skill and training.
Under the voluntary initiative, operatives are offered education in the form of a half-day course with guidance on the correct ordering, handling, finishing and curing of concrete for construction.
A number of courses __have already taken place, and some 20 courses are planned for 2017 in locations around the country.
The course is open to anyone who handles concrete, including construction workers and farmers.
The Irish Concrete Society is running courses on demand throughout Ireland. The cost of the course amounts to €140/person or €1,900 for a group of 15.
Up until now there has been no mechanism for operatives working with concrete to __have their skill and expertise formally recognised, according to the Irish Concrete Society.
The Irish Concrete Society promotes excellence in concrete and ensures operatives continue to meet European and Irish standards, Chair of the Society, Jim Mansfield, said.
While up to now there has been no accredited education programme for concrete operatives, I’m delighted that the Concrete Ticket will now help fill that gap.
“Anyone who works with concrete can now avail of formally-recognised training,” he said.