Page Macrae shares what it has learned from the 2024 Bulk Handling Expo, including how it is helping ports make the most of data.
The 2024 Australian Bulk Handling Expo (BULK2024) was an opportunity for the industry to come together and learn about the latest innovations and equipment.
Among the many decision makers at the event was a delegation from Page Macrae, a New Zealand-based manufacturer for the port industry, including the company’s chief executive officer Alan Sutcliffe.
“Australia is an important market for us,” he told ABHR at the show. “We have quite an established presence here and a significant number of clients.”
“The bulk materials handling and ports industry has seen a growing trend of contracts up for renewal and subsequent tender submissions.
“We have had in-depth conversations, some lasting a few hours and on consecutive days, which have helped us gain a deeper insight into the challenges and opportunities our customers are facing.”
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Automation and the Internet of Things was a key focus for the show this year, with data being front and centre in many conversations across the expo floor.
Page Macrae is part of this broader industry movement, spending a lot of effort on market validation of its equipment telematics data platform – which looks at real time equipment status, maintenance facilitation, and productivity data.
“Our dashboard really resonated in all our discussions and reflected not only our experience but our continued mission to deeply understand our clients’ operations and business strategy,” Peter Swan, Page Macrae general manager of products said.
“The commercial advantages of being able to analyse equipment performance, third party delays, avoidance of costly demurrage, product tip off of overfilled transport, maximising truck fills, all leads to maximising the commercial viability of our clients.
“Post-BULK2024 will see the introduction of our new generation dust suppression hoppers which, when incorporated with our bulk grabs, is a complete ship to truck system with market leading performance and real time visibility of operations.”
Some of the benefits and features of this development include:
- dust-controlled material receiving and discharging in windy conditions
- batch weigh truck loading
- data telemetry
- reduced operational costs
- remote operation
- control of grab opening
- equipment installation commissioning, and training
- flexible configuration.
Swan said there is increasing pressure on the company’s clients to improve the air quality of their staff’s work environment.
“Our clients also need to take into account the ever-increasing urban creep affecting most port environments,” he said.
“Our solutions will enable not only business continuity, but it will also enable performance based and data rich commercial decisions.”
“These solutions include piece of mind options like extended warranties and service package offerings based on telemetry data to ensure our clients can concentrate on their core business with confidence in their asset’s reliability. Uptime in this environment is key.”