Van Schaik’s Bio Gro was formed in 1966, originally providing organic soils and landscape bark within the local region. In the 1990’s we moved into the production of potting mixes and other horticultural products, and commenced packaging these lines at our Factory premises in 1995. We now employ over 80 staff in three key locations to service south eastern Australia.
It was back in 1998 that Gardenscape—a large North American producer of soils, mulch, salt, and stone—called Premier Tech Systems (PTS), a supplier of bagging and palletizing systems, to investigate a potential alliance. At that time, Gardenscape was using a competitor’s horizontal Form, Fill and Seal (FFS) bagger and was not 100% satisfied with the machine’s performance and reliability and the after-sales service provided.
When your company has a need to increase production efficiency in order to meet customers' demands and expectations, automation is the solution. Blaschak Coal Corporation, Mahanoy City, PA, is an Anthracite (hard coal) mining and preparation facility that ships Anthracite worldwide for both residential and commercial uses. Anthracite is one of the cleanest-burning solid fossil fuels and carbon sources known to man. Born in 1937, the Corporation is currently operated by the second generation of Blaschaks.
St. Lawrence Cement, a company of the Holcim Group, was experiencing problems with the palletizer it was using to palletize the cement-filled bags at its Catskill plant. The palletizer was not reliable and the company encountered excessive maintenance issues, downtime, and related problems. In addition, the palletizer frequently mishandled the bags and pallets, causing customer complaints about ripped bags and damaged pallets.
When Oldcastle Stone Products decided to purchase its first automatic bag palletizer in 1999, its choice of supplier was influenced by one main criterion. The equipment had to be sufficiently robust to quickly and efficiently palletize bags of decorative stones weighing as much as 50 lb., taking into account that if a bag broke, particles up to two inches in diameter might fall onto the conveyors.
When you are in the concrete industry and your products are intended for the retail market, it is not easy to meet distributors’ and end users’ expectations. Why? Simply because bags are covered by concrete dust: inevitably, the wholesaler’s displays and the customers’ car trunks become dusty. In response to its customers’ demands, Forwell Materials Inc./Quikrete of Ontario, a leading North American producer of concrete mixes, was looking for a way to provide its product in cleaner, stronger, and nicer-looking plastic bags with gussetted bottoms.
In 2000 the Norwegian company Degernes Torvstrøfabrikk bought an automated EM-600R1 baler from Premier Tech Systems (PTS). It was the beginning of a long and friendly partnership. Degernes Torvstrøfabrikk is a family company and medium-sized peat producer run by Ragnar and Brit N. Halvorsen. Because of the size of the company, Brit and Ragnar are of course involved in all types of the size of the company, Brit and Ragnar are of course involved in all types of daily activities and decisions.
The Russian Peat Group owns several plants in central Russia (Ivanovo, Vologda and Yaroslavl regions) and specializes in peat extraction and processing. Russian Peat manufactures a wide range of growing media products for commercial growers and hobby gardeners. We also produce energy peat for heat-electric power stations. In season, we employ more than 700 skilled workers and stock approximately 40 million tons of peat in our Ivanovo depot, 100 million tons in the Vologda region, and 80 million tons in Yaroslavl.
SIA Unguri is a Latvian peat moss and peat blocks producer that is managing a total area of about 1,000 ha of peatlands. Back in 2004, we first purchased a Two-Head Vacuum Harvester from Premier Tech Systems (PTS) to replace the older European models that we owned. Over the next two years, we also bought a few other Vacuum Harvesters as our production was growing. We kept on buying several units because we were very satisfied with the equipment’s performance.
Barefoot Pellet Company is a manufacturer of quality wood pellets located in Troy, Pennsylvania. Our company first started operating in spring 2006. The first line we had was a single-stage packing line. At the end of 2007, we expanded our production by purchasing a second pellet mill.
Wood fuel pellets, animal bedding, and industrial grade wood flour send a loud, clear message about the ongoing exchange of goods and services: commerce may ebb, but there is always flow. American Wood Fibers, headquartered in Columbia, MD, makes all three of these products, and business is brisk. So brisk, in fact, that American Wood Fibers (AWF) is completing the installation of equipment at a new plant in Marion, VA. Unlike eight sister facilities, the Marion plant will manufacture all three product lines of AWF. The other plants each make two of three.
Evonik-Degussa, headquartered in Parsippany, NJ, operates a plant in Waterford, NY, that produces and packages hydrophilic (water-absorbent) and hydrophobic (water-repellent) silicon dioxide (SiO2). Silicon dioxide, which is used as a filler in products such as paints, coatings, adhesives, and silicone caulk, is produced in bulk and shipped to end users in containers ranging from 10-pound bags to rail cars.
At first, the small-town sugar refinery Wyoming Sugar Company, LLC wanted to automate its packaging line by replacing its manual valve packing operations with exactly the same kind of technology, but with added capacity. At the time, three packers were needed to produce 12 BPM (bags per minute) while still having to place bags manually onto each spout.
A corn mill automates its bagging and palletizing line to improve production rates and decrease labor costs. Agricor Inc., Marion, IN, has been producing dry milled corn products since 1983. The company buys yellow corn from local farmers and grain elevators and mills it into degerminated corn grits, cornmeal, and corn flour. The products are packaged in bulk containers, such as bulk bags and hopper cars or 50- and 100-pound bags, and shipped to various US, Canadian, and international companies for use in food and industrial products. In the past, the company manually bagged and palletized the small bags. However, this method was inefficient, labor-intensive, and dusty, so the company decided to automate it.
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