Meyland moves and transports goods

The motto of family-owned company Meyland, based in Adegem in Belgium, is “make the goods move”. They specialize in building systems for all industrial sectors and any company division regardless of the type of goods being transported, from bulk commodities to a single product. Meyland designs, constructs and maintains systems for transporting single products and bulk commodities. Today, their range of products includes conveyor belts, elevators, screw and chain conveyors, silos, bunkers, mobile scales and packaging and palletising machines.

The internationally active company does not just transport goods from A to B. Instead, they provide practical solutions for optimising the entire production process and making it more efficient and reliable step by step. For several years, Meyland has also taken on turnkey projects. These involve not only installing and delivering transportation systems, but also providing electrical control systems and the entire range of equipment connected with goods transport. In this way, the company provides holistic transport solutions.

Mobile scales and weigh hoppers in international applications

In recent years, the company has specialised in machines and systems connected with port facilities and, most notably, is an important stakeholder in the port of Antwerp. Products made by this Belgian company are also employed in international ports around the globe ever more frequently.

Meyland goes to great lengths to meet high quality standards and guarantee the highest levels of safety at home as well as abroad: all scales, weigh hoppers and other transport systems are first constructed in Belgium and thoroughly tested. If they pass this test phase successfully, the products can then be dismantled again and shipped to the respective country of destination.

Mobile scales and weigh hoppers in particular are used around the world. The products being transported can be fed into the weighing system by crane or conveyor belt before being shipped. Mobile scales continually weigh the incoming goods with a maximum throughput of 2000 m³ per hour. After weighing, conveyor belts transport the products to the correct storage area.

Used in ports around the world – an application in Kenya

Meyland constructed three mobile weigh hoppers for a Kenyan customer. This is already the second time that the company has completed a project at this African port. The gigantic weigh hoppers are used for handling cement and maize at the port of Mombasa. After all, this Kenyan port is one of the largest trading hubs for maize in the world.

Michiel Dielman, project manager at Meyland, explains: “We built three mobile weigh hoppers for the port of Kenya. They are used to weigh bulk goods. They enable you to determine with great precision how many tonnes of raw materials are being moved when loading and unloading ships.”

For this project, as for many others, the weigh hoppers and batch scales were first designed and completely constructed in Belgium by Meyland employees. After thorough and comprehensive testing, they were dismantled again for shipping to their final destination in Kenya. Once the weighing bunkers had safely arrived at the port, local workers reconstructed them under the supervision of Meyland employees. All parties involved were delighted that the entire project ran so smoothly and that the hoppers and scales could successfully be put into operation extremely quickly.

Mammoth weigh hoppers

The special feature of these weigh hoppers is their enormous size: they are each 13 metres high and weigh over 90 tonnes. For this reason, a total of 14 special trailers and 11 containers were required to transport them. The weigh hoppers and batch scales are also equipped with generators to allow them to operation fully autonomously. The calibrated weighing systems can weigh up to 800 tonnes every hour and up to 20 tonnes per batch.

Michiel Dielman says: “These machines are absolutely huge! In view of their colossal size, it was vital to attach warning signals to the machines for the safety of all persons working nearby”.

Safety first – safety for people in the immediate vicinity

The issue of safety is paramount for Meyland. The company believes that many accidents resulting in injury, bodily harm, material damage and environmental damage can be prevented by suitable preventative measures and safety precautions.

So Meyland set out to find qualified partners who supply suitable signalling systems for all mobile scales and weigh hoppers. WERMA proved to be the perfect partner. Meyland quickly found what they were looking for in the extensive and varied product range of the German signal device manufacturer. They selected signal lamps and sirens suitable for warning anybody in the vicinity of the potential hazards both visually and audibly.

Intensely bright and loud signalling

The chassis of the gigantic hoppers have wheels that can move in all directions. From the very moment that the units begin to move, WERMA yellow flashing lights and loud multi-tone sounders start up. This allows everybody to comply with the required safety distance as soon as the titan is set in motion. Michiel Dielman explains: “This is a very dangerous area. Nobody is allowed near the hopper while it is moving. For this reason, we use the very attention-grabbing signal lamps and sirens made by WERMA”.

The machine operators also require signals. The crane driver has to know when the hopper is ready to receive the next batch of raw materials. LED EVS lamps from the WERMA 280 series are used for this purpose. The randomly flickering light produced by these lamps is exceptionally conspicuous. The random light signal sequences makes the light seem very ‘agitated’. This means that the excellent signalling effect is sustained, even when only seen from the corner of the eye. EVS stands for Enhanced Visibility System or ‘Elektronische Verbesserung der Sichtbarkeit’, in German.

Michiel Dielman says: “We use large EVS lamps in red and green. When the green lamp goes on, this signals that the machine is ready for the next batch. Conversely, if the red signal lights up, the weigh hopper is still processing raw materials and the crane driver must wait”.

Choosing the right signals

Niki Claeys helped them to choose suitable products. He is a technical sales manager at the Belgian branch of WERMA. He made sure that extremely bright and powerful products were used on the weigh hoppers so that they could still be clearly seen in the bright surroundings in Kenya: “The large LED signal lamps are ideal for the Meyland projects. They can be clearly seen from great distances and even in direct sunlight. Meyland also mounted the lamps obliquely so they are easily discernible from any angle”.

Niki Claeys adds: “Meyland decided to use the multi-tone sounder 144 for acoustic signalling. It produces a noise level of 114 decibels that can be heard distinctly, even if the ambient volume level at the port is very high”. The weigh hoppers that were constructed in Kenya in 2017 were also retrofitted with WERMA signal lamps.

WERMA lamps? Any time!

A WERMA signal tower of the KombiSIGN 71 series was also attached to the control cabinet of the weigh hopper drive section. A green light indicates when the machine is ready for transportation. The red light shows that a parameter is incorrect and that action is required.

The project in Kenya ran smoothly and all parties concerned were delighted that the gargantuan weigh hoppers could be put into operation without any problems. Michiel Dielman concludes: “We have several new projects in the pipeline for which we will certainly be using WERMA. In the past, we tried using a different type of signal, but WERMA always delivered the best quality. They recently introduced their new EvoSIGNAL LED lamps. The light intensity of these is even better than that of the older series. We will certainly be using them!”