Don't Overlook Automated Receiving: Top 3 Benefits for Agronomy Facilities

While blending often takes center stage when discussing automation in agronomy facilities, automated receiving is an equally important, but overlooked, piece of the puzzle. In our experience, automating receiving in your facility brings significant benefits that not only directly affect the receiving process but also benefit the facility’s broader picture. No matter the size of your facility, we’ve found three benefits to adding automated receiving:

• Alleviate Labor Challenges

• Increase Hazard Monitoring

• Inventory Management & Data Traceability

Alleviate Labor Challenges

In most manual facilities, employees must leave the office to access the mezzanine in dry facilities or containment areas in liquid facilities to manage the receiving process. The manual process is time-consuming, requires more manpower, and ultimately increases safety risk for employees. With the implementation of automated receiving, a single operator can often manage the entire receiving process remotely. Eliminating the need to physically navigate hazardous areas, such as containment zones or piping systems, especially during late-night hours in the busy season, reduces exposure and risk for your employees. With automation, your facility’s receiving is centralized through an HMI screen, accessible from anywhere in the facility via a tablet or remote panel. This provides increased visibility and simplifies training and operation for new employees.

Increase Hazard Monitoring

Hazard monitoring is no longer a luxury, but rather a requirement to ensure a facility can run most efficiently and effectively during the busy agronomy seasons. Automating your receiving processes enables you to monitor various metrics, including load amps, bearing temperature sensors, rub block sensors, overfill protection level sensors in tanks, and more. Automation enables the customizable, real-time control of variable frequency drives (VFDs) to achieve optimal material flow into the facility. Lastly, properly sequencing startup and shutdown procedures through automation in the event of a shutdown further prevents unnecessary facility-wide shutdowns or catastrophic events, thereby enhancing both the safety and productivity of the facility.  

Inventory Management & Data Traceability

Automating your receiving system is another step toward ensuring accurate inventory management and preventing costly mistakes with misplaced products. Automated receiving systems help verify that the right product is sent to the correct destination through safeguarding programs and provide a detailed data trail of how the product moves through the facility. With remote access to the facility's HMI screens through touchscreen panels, tablets, or office computers, operators can monitor and control the receiving process from anywhere in the facility. Lastly, integrating your scales into your automated receiving system enables real-time data capture during product receipt, providing more accurate inventory information directly into your software systems.

Dry Agronomy Tower Receiving HMI Screen

Liquid Agronomy Receiving HMI Screen