Success stories

Fire destroyed the Kekkilä Oy peat processing factory in Eurajoki, Finland, but with Premier Tech’s help, finished products were moving along the conveyors of a brand-new factory less than one year later.

St. Lawrence Cement (now a part of CRH Canada Group Inc.), was experiencing problems with the palletizer it was using for 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 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 solid fossil fuels and carbon sources known to man. Born in 1937, the corporation is currently operated by the second generation of Blaschaks.

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.

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.

Satisfying distributors and end users When you are in the concrete industry and your products are intended for the retail market, it is not easy to meet the expectations of distributors and end users. 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 products in cleaner, stronger and nicer-looking plastic bags with gussetted bottoms.

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.

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.  

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 (AWF), headquartered in Columbia, MD, is completing the installation of equipment at a new plant in Marion, VA. Unlike its eight sister facilities, the Marion plant will manufacture AWF’s three product lines.

NrGaïa SAS, based in Saint-Etienne-lès-Remiremont, France, processes paper into eco-friendly cellulose-based thermal insulation. Demand for this insulation is growing: “New regulations related to energy savings are pushing the market up significantly,” reports company president M. Olivier Legrand. “The global European insulation market represents 7 200 M€. It is growing at a pace of 6 percent each year.” That’s the good news.

Founded in 1980, and formerly known as Colispro, Nationex has become an important player in the Canadian courier industry. Located in Montréal, Canada, Nationex’s head office is also the main parcel sorting facility. Other facilities are located elsewhere in Québec and Ontario, allowing us to deliver parcels throughout Canada. Today, we have over 400 employees working in our different branches. As a courier company, we collect the parcels from the client and transport them to the warehouse, where they are sorted by delivery zone and loaded into our trucks to be delivered.

The Premier Tech PTH-920 open-mouth bagging line at the Ceresco facility in Saint-Urbain-Premier has enabled the soybean distributor to vastly improve its production line efficiencies. Positioned inside the PTH-920 bagging workcell, a FANUC Robotics LR Mate 250iC robot waits its turn to move a filled soybean bag from the filler onto a conveyor line for sealing.

A milling company increases their production rate 85% and reduces labor by installing flexible screw conveyors, net-weigh scales and dual-spout open-mouth baggers. Massachusetts-based Bay State Milling Company had an enviable problem: its Clifton, New Jersey, plant couldn’t satisfy customer demand for flour. “We needed to keep up with demands from new customers,” explains Plant Manager Mike Walsh. “We needed a packer that was high speed, with quick changeover capabilities, and was versatile enough to pack 100-, 50- and 25-pound-bags on the same machine.”

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 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.

In 2000, Norwegian company Degernes Torvstrøfabrikk bought an automated EM-600R1 baler from Premier Tech's Industrial Equipment Group (IEG). It was the beginning of a long and friendly partnership.

SIA Unguri is a Latvian peat moss and peat block producer that is managing a total area of about 1000 ha of peatlands. Back in 2004, we purchased a Two-Head Vacuum Harvester from Premier Tech's Industrial Equipment Group (IEG) 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.

It was back in 1998 that Gardenscape, a large North American producer of soils, mulch, salt and stone, called Premier Tech's Industrial Equipment Group (IEG), 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 neither was it with the after-sales service provided.

Van Schaik’s Bio Gro was founded in 1966, originally providing organic soils and landscape bark within the local region. In the 1990s, we moved into the production of potting mixes and other horticultural products, and commenced packaging these lines in 1995. We now employ over 80 workers in three key locations to service South-Eastern Australia.

Industries Ling Inc. is a company which specializes in the manufacture and printing of cartons for the food, beverage and feminine hygiene industries. This Québec company, situated in Warwick, went into business 50 years ago. It was taken over by RockTenn 30 years later, and the plant now employs 440 people.

Novus International Inc., headquartered in St. Charles, Mo., is a global supplier of animal feed ingredients and other products for poultry, cattle, pigs, horses, pets, and other animals. The company’s Novus Arkansas LLC facility in Little Rock, Ark., produces and exports proprietary animal feed ingredients to more than 70 countries around the world. In 2009, the company expanded the Little Rock facility to boost production to meet increasing customer demand. To ensure that the various products were properly packaged, palletized, and secured for transport, the company needed to find a fast, reliable, and accurate automated bagging and palletizing system