Bulk Equipment Solutions Custom Crafted in USA
800.694.7271
800.694.7271
Business had grown steadily for Uncle Harry’s Natural Products, Redmond, Washington, since its founding in 1991. Long before Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. brought the Make America Healthy Again movement to the mainstream, Uncle Harry’s Founder Harry Terhanian began manufacturing a line of natural, organic consumer personal care products featuring bentonite clay such as toothpaste, mouthwash, and deodorant. These products work as effectively as nationally known name brands, or better, but with minimal processing and much cleaner labels, and without the potentially dangerous ingredients, preservatives, and colorants being implicated among the causes of a wide range of medical conditions. The family-owned company now offers 259 earth-friendly, sustainably-manufactured products available in hundreds of retail locations worldwide and is projected to top $5 million in sales in 2025.
During more than three decades in operation, the green lifestyle company had optimized its manufacturing process based on producing weekly batches of its flagship mouthwash and toothpaste products. Starting with 40-pound bags of bentonite clay, it was easy to manually scoop out the proper amount by weight and load it into the bakery quality dough mixer along with any secondary and microingredients. A reasonable amount of airborne dust and spillage was accepted as part of the process since cleanup was manageable with an industrial vacuum.
But last year, Chief Growth Officer Ashton Ryan received a call that threatened to shutdown the operation. Their bentonite clay supplier had discontinued its 40-pound bags and suddenly required purchasing in bulk bags weighing in at 2,000 lbs. While sales were growing sharply enough to handle increasing material in storage by 50x, integrating the bulk bag into the process triggered a series of hazards that had Ryan concerned for both his staff and his production throughput.
Instead of manually scooping clay from a small bag to fill a small pail, workers now stood aside the palletized bulk bag wearing face masks to filter out ultrafine particulates and scooped the clay from the open top into the same, small pail. At approximately four feet tall, the bag height did not create physical difficulties at first, but by the time the dry, fine material with nano-sized particles had been drawn down to halfway, reaching down into the bag had become an ergonomic problem and a potential source of back injuries. In addition, workers found it quite difficult to keep the powder from escaping into the air and onto the floor when transferring it from the bulk bag to the pail. Spillage and dust clouds became standard – and a production run of toothpaste required filling 12 of these pails with the clay to the rim. “It got everywhere and made quite a mess,” says Ryan. “We had clay on the floor, we had airborne dust, and our people would be covered in it head to toe looking like ghosts. We couldn’t operate like this.” For a green company devoted to sustainability, this was a wasteful, unsustainable situation.
As the cleaning demands increased exponentially, the daily vacuuming that sufficed for decades could not keep up with the increased amount of dust. Keeping the facility clean to FDA-compliant, food-grade requirements now demanded eight workers spending two hours per week, every week, just to manage the mess. The airborne dust also posed an unlikely but potential risk of a combustible dust incident.
Ryan began looking for a dust-free way to manage the bentonite clay transfer. Himself a mechanical engineer, Ryan attended Pack Expo and consulted with several equipment manufacturers that offer automated equipment designed to safely empty powders from these bulk bags, but came up empty. “Nobody offered a bag unloader that was truly dust-free,” says Ryan, “and if it isn’t really dust-free then what’s the point of such a major investment?” Turning to the Web, Ryan found a short article at PowderBulkSolids.com presenting a bulk bag unloader designed specifically for unloading bentonite clay and other non-free flowing materials. This new unloader was developed by Automated Flexible Conveyor (AFC), a custom process equipment manufacturer based in Clifton, New Jersey.
Headed by David Nadel, design engineer, and his business partner, Jeff Malenchak, manufacturing engineer, AFC designs and manufactures automated powder and bulk handling equipment such as conveyors, weighing systems, and bag break stations, as well as bulk bag unloaders that are truly dust-free. Its New Jersey manufacturing facility sports a test laboratory spanning nearly 1,000 square feet stocked with full-size process equipment to simulate actual operating conditions.
Nadel worked together with Ryan to design a custom solution delivering the dust-free design Ryan envisioned along with additional advances Nadel recommended from his decades of experience in designing systems for safely and efficiently moving powders from point A to point B. The AFC design integrates bulk bag unloading with conveying to automatically transfer the clay from the bulk bag directly into the pail within a sealed, enclosed system. This setup prevents any dust or fine particles from escaping into the work environment and supports compliance with FDA regulations for cleanliness.
To operate, a forklift driver raises the bulk bag and sets it onto the steel frame of the AFC bulk bag unloader. The sturdy frame is coated with protective, USDA-compliant 316L stainless steel epoxy paint and accommodates loads up to 4,000 lbs., double the weight of the loaded bentonite clay bags, and mounts to the floor for stability. Then, a worker seals the external dust collar pickup, opens the proprietary tie box housing to access the bottom of the bag, and unties the bag ties to allow the powder to discharge. This clever access housing sports a clear window to allow operators to see the material discharging from the bag without risk of releasing any material into the workplace. It also offers instantaneous visual confirmation of the flow of material discharge and the rate.
When ready to empty the bulk bag, a worker presses start on the control panel. Dual, pneumatic steel paddles take action to gently coax the powdered material out of the bag and into the tie box. From the tie box, the powder is automatically drawn down to the infeed of the integrated AFC SPIRALFEEDERTM flexible screw conveyor via a sealed connection. This AFC signature conveying system sets a rotating screw auger within an enclosed outer tube to automatically transfer powders, granules, blends, flakes, and other dry, bulk materials from one point in a process to another within a dust-tight system. The bentonite clay is gently drawn through the screw conveyor and discharged directly into the small pail, which is set on a scale to continuously monitor the weight. A novel variable speed foot pedal control enables the worker to control the discharge speed, fully depressing the pedal at first then gradually releasing it to slow the flow when approaching the fill point. The filled pail is taken to the mixer and replaced with an empty pail. Removal and replacement for return to service takes one minute or less.
The new powder handling system has eliminated the manual powder scooping operation, along with the associated dust clouds, housekeeping mess, safety concerns, and costly material waste. Workers no longer need to wear the PPE. “The AFC system works perfectly, it’s easy to use and our employees love it,” says Ryan. “The facility stays clean enough to pass an on-site FDA audit, production moves faster and smoother, and all of our lives are much easier.”
Using the old, manual pail filling approach required up to five minutes to fill one pail. Using the new, automated AFC system cuts the time to one minute. Filling 12 pails for a typical toothpaste production run that typically required upwards of 45 minutes now takes only 15 minutes. In addition, the new AFC system ensures nearly 100% of the bentonite clay is effectively emptied from the bulk bag and entered into production. In the past, workers often shook the nearly empty 40-pound bags but this only added to the dust problem without capturing all of the material. Given Ryan plans to ramp up production from approximately one batch per week to one per day, the savings in time, labor, and material become exponentially greater as the company continues to grow and expand.
“Dave and Jeff paid close attention to the details to make sure this system addressed everything we needed and that it worked as intended,” says Ryan. For example, to allow the system to fit into its tight space, AFC set the automated controls on a portable, rolling frame with an extra long power cord. This also allows the worker to operate the machine at a safe distance away from the machine and from any forklift traffic. To ensure the bulk bag unloader would be compatible not only with the current bulk bag style but also with nearly any style that might be used in the future, AFC recommended the ideal frame height and hole pattern within the steel frame.
“AFC worked with me to custom-engineer a dust-free, sanitary, automated powder handling solution that has eliminated dust from our workplace,” says Ryan, who flew to AFC’s New Jersey facility to test the new system using his own bentonite clay as it approached completion. “Now, our production is in position to keep up with our aggressive sales growth, our employees are much happier to come to work, and the price was very reasonable – we’re really happy with AFC.”
For more information on Uncle Harry’s, see https://uncleharrys.com/ or call 425-558-4251.
For more information on AFC, see https://afcspiralfeeder.com/ or call 800.694.7271; sales@afcspiralfeeder.com.