January 2023: General Mills Carlisle Plant reached out to ADI regarding testing on some current Graco Drum Unloader Bulldog units. They were aware of their Murfreesboro, TN location making a recent purchase of new SDU units and wanted to learn more about their capabilities. Through multiple conversations with the Carlisle team, Kris Rarden & Bo Couch recommended making a trip out to Murfreesboro to collect some information in person and thus providing more direction for the Carlisle team.
March 2023: General Mills Murfreesboro, TN Plant provided some dates that would work for them, and Bo Couch met on-site on March 2nd. The purpose of this trip was to collect information on product, evacuation time, and piston pump ratios. Following this trip, we set up follow-up calls with GMI Carlisle and provided multiple quotes on units that we believed would work for the Carlisle Plant’s application.
April 2023: Kris Rarden & Bo Couch performed a 4-day on-site testing with the GMI team. Prior to arrival, Tabitha Collins shipped an in-stock unit down to Iowa. Below is the summary of testing.
- March 27, 2023 - Monday:
- Disassembling and cleaning on the 12:1 piston pump.
- Kris and Bo broke down the unit and reassembled to show the GMI team how to do this.
- March 28, 2023 - Tuesday:
- Pumping of PB out of 55-gallon drums
- Bulldog units were achieving sub-4 min evacuation.
- Our SDU was running anywhere between 7-12 min depending on viscosity.
- March 29, 2023 - Wednesday:
- 5:1 DB Priming Piston Pump - SDU
- It was determined that due to the maximum output pressure rating, it would not effectively pump PB at a pace that would meet with the requirements of GMI.
- Switched out back to the 12:1.
- March 30, 2023 - Thursday:
- GMI, ADI & Graco held a meeting to discuss ways to bypass the air pressure regulators in the control panel.
- Air line to be installed directly from wall to top of head plate and hose diameter was doubled.
- March 31, 2023 - Friday:
- GMI made these changes and cut the evacuation time in half around 4 min.
- This was shocking to Graco as they have never seen PB be evacuated in 4 minutes like this.