Flow Meters & Metering Systems
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TopTech Offers Solutions for the Paint Market

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Toptech Systems is a global leader in cutting-edge software, hardware, and professional services for automating bulk terminal and bulk plant operations. For over three decades, it has been trusted by over 800 facilities across the world, including industry giants like Shell, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips.

A recent case study has found yet another application for Toptech’s versatile solutions: helping paint producers and distributors manage their precious and costly wares. One of the largest companies in the industry was facing a multitude of issues related to its paints, including tracing its products, ensuring quality control, and managing inventory, to name but a few of the challenges.

Moreover, the company compiles their raw material paint resins and solvents into large mixing tanks. These materials must be analyzed against precise recipe specifications to ensure quality control. Once approved, the end product is made available to the container production line for filling of five-gallon pails.

Compiling the raw materials requires seven positive displacement (PD) meters, mechanical preset registers, set-stop valves and diaphragm pumps.  Connecting these raw building blocks to the mixing takes require manually operated hoses. With as many 29 raw material tanks involved – and a plethora of mechanical registers, pumps, and other transitional equipment needing to be operated manually – a lot can go wrong without tighter controls.

After understanding the client’s process and the challenges therein, Toptech proposed two solutions.

The first option, the company would implement a batch control scheme that would utilize four MultiLoad II’s and FCM II’s to control the seven PD meters. Each meter would be assigned a preset in each MultiLoad, an expertly engineered control scheme allowing one of the four MultiLoad II’s to control one or all of the seven meters independently. Such versatility would cut out the more difficult and risky manual operations.

The second choice was similar, only instead it would assign MultiLoad II SMPs to each of the seven PD meters. Either way, the company’s batching operators would be able to use system Access IDs to preset batches and deliver precise batch amounts into the mixing tanks. The MultiLoad II’s would carefully log the batching activities of all operators and each transaction could be reported out to plant management for on-the-spot tracking and control.

Though the project is ongoing, rigorous lab testing of the idea is highly encouraging. Following evaluation, plant managers opted for the simpler and comparatively less costly second option.

This is yet another example of Toptech’s many invaluable services and products in support for Water Meters and other metering systems. For more information on this and other Flow Meter Products, contact the Avanti Company at 800-284-5231 or email info@avanticompany.com.

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