Visit to Nghe An Sugar (NASU), Vietnam
Following the addition of a second tip bay for road, and the installation of a new ProFoss NIR CAS system at Nghe An Sugar, Mirrabooka has recently completed the installation of a significant upgrade to the full sample tracking system.
Gary McNair, Mirrabooka's manufacturing director, spent a week in Vietnam at the beginning of January, commissioning the new system and providing training to NASU employees. The visit was extremely beneficial for both parties, and Gary was shown great courtesy by all at NASU.
New System
Cane is transported to the Nghe An mill using road transport, with loads between 12 to 18 tonnes. With the previous transport method, the road cane is transferred into rail bins, which move around a small, rail loop within the mill yard.
These bins progress along this loop until they arrive at a rail tip bay, where they are tipped onto the main cane carrier. With the recent installation, a road tip bay has been constructed adjacent to the rail tip bay. With this new bay, road vehicles are now able to tip direct without the need to transfer the cane consignments to rail bins. Currently, this new bay has been allocated for mechanised harvesting (billet cane), whereas the rail cane is predominantly whole stick.
Both of these tip bays are now in operation. Consequently, there are two tipping points on the main cane conveyor. With a single tip, this transfer is relatively straight forward, but when a second tip bay is introduced, with the ability to switch between delivery types, it increases the complexity of the tip scheduling significantly. It is important that the two bays do not contaminate samples from both the rail and road, and that there are no gaps in the feed.
The above display provides a good overview for both the tip and sampling operations. Click image to view in full screen.