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Meyland puts things in motion
The motto of Meyland, a family company based in the Belgian village of Adegem, is "make the goods move. They specialize in high-quality installations to handle and transport piece and bulk goods in all sectors of industry. Meyland designs, builds and maintains systems for transporting individual and bulk goods. The product range includes conveyors, elevators, worm screws and chain conveyors as well as silos, bunkers, mobile scales and packaging and palletizers.
The internationally active company not only transports goods from A to B, but also offers practical solutions to optimize the entire production process, making it more efficient and reliable little by little. For several years, Meyland has also taken on turnkey projects. This involves not only the supply and installation of the transport equipment itself, but also the electrical control and all equipment surrounding the transport. In this way, the company offers total solutions for all aspects of transportation.
From Point A to Abroad
Meyland has specialized in recent years in machinery and equipment for port facilities and is a major player especially in the port of Antwerp. The Belgian company's products are also increasingly being used in international ports around the world.
They make every effort to meet high quality standards and guarantee the highest possible safety even abroad. All scales, weigh hoppers and other transport equipment are first assembled and thoroughly tested in Belgium. If this testing phase is successful, the products can be disassembled again and shipped to the appropriate destination country.
Mobile scales and weigh hoppers in particular are used worldwide. Using a crane or conveyor belt, products can be fed through the weighing system and then shipped. The mobile scales continuously weigh incoming goods, with a maximum throughput of 2000 m³ per hour. After weighing, the products are transported by conveyors to the appropriate storage area.
Mobile weighing judges in Kenya
Meyland has built three mobile weigh hoppers for a customer in Kenya. This is the second time the company has completed a project for the African port. The huge weigh hoppers are used for the transshipment of cement and maize in the port of Mombasa. After all, this Kenyan port is one of the largest terminals in the world for maize trade.
Michiel Dieleman, project manager at Meyland, clarifies, "We have built three mobile weigh hoppers for the port of Kenya. They are used for weighing bulk commodities. This way, when loading and unloading ships, they know exactly how many tons of raw materials are being moved.
Also for this project, the weigh hoppers and batch scales were initially designed and built entirely by Meyland employees in Belgium. After a thorough and extensive inspection, they were disassembled again and then shipped to their final destination in Kenya. After the weighing bunkers arrived safely at their destination, they were reassembled by local staff under the supervision of Meyland employees. Everyone involved was happy that the whole project went so smoothly and that the hoppers and scales were put into operation in a very short time and with success.
A giant size
The special feature of these weigh hoppers is their enormous size: they are each 13 meters high and weigh more than 90 tons.A total of 14 trailers and 11 containers were needed for transport. In addition, generators ensure that the weigh hoppers and batch scales can operate completely autonomously. The calibrated weighing system can weigh up to 800 tons per hour, up to 20 tons per batch.
Michiel Dieleman explains, "These machines are really huge! Given their colossal size, it was necessary to provide appropriate warning signals to all persons in the vicinity of these machines."
Safety first - Safety for persons in the immediate vicinity
For Meyland, the topic of safety plays a major role. The company is convinced that many accidents - which cause injuries, physical damage, material damage and damage to the environment - can be prevented by taking appropriate preventive and protective measures.
Therefore, Meyland started looking for a suitable partner for the correct signaling of all mobile scales and weighing funnels.WERMA turned out to be the perfect partner. Meyland quickly found what they were looking for in the German signal equipment manufacturer's extensive and versatile product range. They selected suitable signal lights and sirens to visually and acoustically warn all persons in the immediate vicinity of the machines of the impending danger.
Clear and powerful signaling
The chassis of the huge hoppers has wheels that can move in all directions. From the moment the unit begins to move, the orange WERMA flashing lights illuminate and the powerful multi-tone siren goes off. This allows everyone to maintain the necessary safety distance as soon as this giant starts moving. Michiel Dieleman explains: "This is an extremely dangerous zone. No one should go near the funnel when it is moving. That's why we rely on WERMA's very distinctive signal lights and sirens."
Signaling is also needed for whoever is operating the machine. The crane operator needs to know when the hopper scale is ready to receive the next batch of raw materials. WERMA's Series 280 LED EVS lights are used for this purpose. EVS stands for "Enhanced Visibility System" or "Electronic Visibility Enhancement. With their irregular flashing light, these lamps guarantee optimum alertness. The random sequences of the light signals make the light appear very "unsettled. A permanent very high level of perception is achieved even when the light is seen only from the corner of the eye.
Michiel Dieleman explains, "We chose the large EVS lamps in red and green. When the green lamp lights up, the machine is ready for the next batch. On the other hand, if the red lamp is on, the weigh hopper is still processing the raw materials and the crane operator has to wait."
Choosing the right signals
Niki Claeys helped select the appropriate products. He is technical sales manager at the WERMA branch in Belgium. He ensured that extremely bright products were used: "The large LED signal lights are ideal for the Meyland projects. They are clearly visible from a long distance and even clearly visible in the bright sunlight in Kenya."
Niki Claeys continues, "For acoustic signaling, Meyland uses the multi-tone siren 144. This can be heard very well thanks to its powerful 114 decibels, even when the ambient noise in the port is very high." The weigh hoppers, already built in Kenya in 2017, are also equipped with the WERMA signal lights.
"Lamps from WERMA? Always a pleasure!"
A WERMA signal tower from the KombiSIGN 71 series installed. The green light indicates when the machine is ready for transport. The red light indicates when a parameter is out of order and action is required.
The project in Kenya went off without a hitch and everyone involved was delighted that the huge weigh hoppers were put into operation without a hitch. Finally, Michiel Dieleman says: "We have a number of new projects in the pipeline for which we will certainly call on WERMA again. We have tried other types of signaling before, but the best quality was always WERMA. Recently they presented their new EvoSIGNAL LED lamps. The light intensity is even further improved over the older series. We will definitely work with it!"
