Bulgur Electrical Upgrade Planning
Customer: Food Customer
Project Type: Pre-Engineering design for complete renovation of electrical and control systems at a grain handling facility.
Project Scope: Matrix Technologies provided a detailed pre-engineering effort to upgrade the customer facility in Nebraska. The facility, which produces bulgur wheat for the domestic and international markets and a special corn-soy-blended product for government foreign aid programs, was installed over 40 years ago. As a result, the facility has no PLC and no centralized MCC rooms. Furthermore, the area was recently re-classified as Class II Div. 2 due to dust generated from the process requiring much of the power system to be relocated.
To provide a solution to the problem, Matrix Technologies developed three (3) separate options to consider with varying degrees of modularity, simplicity, and cost. However, upon inspection of the site, only two (2) were deemed viable. Option one was a ten-story addition, to replace an old stairwell that was beginning to show signs of disrepair, or option 2 which required building a new single-story building to house the MCC room.
Each option had its benefits and drawbacks. The ten (10) story addition boasted increased speeds and ease of adding future equipment, which came at the cost of potential production stoppages for construction. The new building option was cheaper, along with being much faster and less likely to stop the facility. However, it was much more difficult to troubleshoot if problems did arise. For each option, a detailed cost estimate and schedule was delivered along with the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.
The customer now has all the information they need to make an informed decision on the best path forward, where Matrix will assist with the implementation of the selected option
Engineering Challenges: The existing facility was very old and not very well documented, so additional field work was required to gather pertinent details for the cost estimate.
Project Outcome: The customer was provided with all of the details needed to make an informed decision on the best path forward for the upgrade.