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LightSORT goes Southern Yellow Pine - Part Two |
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Page 1 of 4 Report from the field: Part Two
The Southern Yellow Pine project moves into the pre-engineering and manufacturing stages. From the Westmill Machine Automation base in Vancouver and the mill site in the U.S. south, Brian Martin takes us through the process.
Missed Part One? Read it here.
Manufacturing LightSORT™ for SYP
Prior to manufacturing a LightSORT™ system a Pre-Engineering site visit
occurs. This is an extensive two-day on-location site visit and was
concluded with the Southern Yellow Pine customer in late January of
this year. Based on the joint decisions resulting from this site visit
the actual LightSORT™ manufacturing began in Vancouver at the same time
that the site preparations commenced. This means that a number of
activities are running concurrently, including the mechanical aspects,
the framework fabrication, the electrical aspects, the systems
communication needs, as well as the site specific software requirements.
Manufacturing of the LightSORT™ system, from fabricating to electrical,
takes place in Vancouver, BC, Canada, the head office location of
Westmill Machine Automation Inc.
“Because it was basically a new green line, this LightSORT™
installation utilized our already developed standard framework, which
kept both costs to a minimum as well as delivery on schedule for our
customer,” commented Brian Martin, General Manager of Westmill Machine
Automation, “Now it is just a matter of their installation crew
dropping the framework onto the foundation at site, running new
transport belts to the stacker and they will be back in production.
After this is completed we travel to site and assist with their
electrical start up and the system optimization requirements. This all
takes place while they are still in full production, we don’t shut
their production down to complete the installation and optimization
aspects. As a matter of fact, the Freres installation proceeded so
smoothly that they reported zero loss of production, the key is in the
pre-planning.”
“It is because of this and our stringent quality control throughout the
entire process; right from the pre-engineering site visit through to
the manufacturing and fabricating processes that the LightSORT™
framework takes less than a weekend to install, each detail has all
been carefully designed to minimize the installation down time required
by the customer.”
Martin explained further, “Westmill is very proud of the LightSORT™
system and the attention to detail and the craftsmanship everyone puts
into the sytem throughout, we have an excellent team of dedicated
professionals involved in each and every phase, from initial design to
final system optimization.”
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