Carsten's Corner: CleverConveyor

Imagine if our customers could see this data and get the advantage of receiving info on their conveyors, improving their workflow, operational economy, and their business.

3,5 years ago, we made a product development on our conveyors, where we inserted a frequency converter in the control box in our conveyors. We wanted to add more features such as variable speed, a function to make the conveyor move both forwards and backwards, and adding conveyors in a serial connection. We developed it, and it has since been a huge success!

For about 2 years ago, we were talking loosely about how much data was accessible in this frequency converter, and how grand it would be to make this data visible to our customers. Imagine if our customers could see this data and get the advantage of receiving info on their conveyors, improving their workflow, operational economy, and their business. This was the keynote in the beginning. And this is where the idea of figuring out what it takes to create what has since become the CleverConveyor.

In the beginning, we thought we were so clever. We talked to a lot of people and started working on this idea. We applied for some funds to make the project happen, and in that context, we were made aware of a program called; TechMatch, which is a RealDania funding box-sponsored set-up. We got in touch with TechMatch, and they, fortunately, also thought our idea was great! They got us into this matching system of technology, where we were matched with a Portuguese company, that already had the solution we were looking for. This solution had already been used in buses and trucks all over the world for years. They had the know-how and experience that we in no way had – of course, we thought we did, but you know… That was the beginning of a 2-year process, which has been delayed and limited by COVID-19 and all the challenges there have been in the world over the last couple of years. But all of this is the reason why I can now tell you about our brand-new, ground-breaking CleverConveyor.

What the CleverConveyor actually contribute is:

• When a spare part needs to be changed, or there is an overload on the conveyor, you get an alert so you can act before the damage is done.
• If something goes wrong, the customer can go to the dashboard and see what exactly is wrong. It can be a specific fuse that needs to be changed.
• You can see how long the CleverConveyor has been used in a day, week, or month. This is highly relevant for rental companies.
• You can see if the conveyor has been overloaded, and for how long it had been overloaded.
• You can see the lifespan of the motor.
• You can check the ampere consumption if something isn’t working as well as it should. If the conveyor has a high ampere consumption with no load, it is a sign that the belt needs to be adjusted.

We can see a lot of things on the dashboard. We have added the most important parameters and made them visible to our customers. Furthermore, we have the opportunity to see even more parameters, but the most essential for the customer is visible to them.

An example would be a rental company that rents out 10 conveyors for a construction job. The conveyors return to the rental company, and before storing them in their warehouse, they prepare them for the next job. And here, you can take out Baron’s digital dashboard, go through the parameters and see; what is the status of the CleverConveyors. In this way, you as a customer have the opportunity to fix whatever needs to be fixed before sending them out to the next job. I would not feel great about sending out 10 conveyors, and then I would have to go to the construction site and get 2 of the conveyors because there was an error on them that I could easily have fixed in my own warehouse before sending them out.

So, again, a good operational economy makes sense to me, and I bet it makes sense to you. For me, it is quite genius that we at Baron A/S can give our customers this opportunity to optimise their business in this revolutionary way.

For example, we have a lot of great customers in Australia, who use of conveyors. When they build houses out there, there is often 5 cm between the walls – you know, to the neighbour’s house. And then there are some people who regret not building a pool in the first place, who needs to figure out how to dig out soil for this project, how to transport all this soil out of the construction site, and get construction equipment into the construction site. There are 2 ways of doing it. Either you rent a very large, tall, and expensive crane and move it over the roof, or you do how they do it many places in Australia – drive conveyors through the entire house.

Besides using the conveyor to remove soil and construction equipment, there are others that use them to move apples with. There are also companies that use conveyors to sort plastic for recycling. Our conveyors are constructed with aluminium, which means you can place a magnetic strip to remove nails, metal, and other things there might be in the plastic. In this way, you get a way cleaner plastic you can use for recycling when it has been through a portable Baron conveyor.

It takes absolutely nothing to operate the CleverConveyor. If you are unhappy with the speed, adjust it accordingly. If you need to change the direction, push a button on the conveyor. So, from my perspective, it is quite easy to manage.

Depending on the job that needs to be done, you can save an insane amount of time and effort with a CleverConveyor from Baron.

A little fun fact; our conveyor was once used at a festival in Denmark. Here, they were making freshly squeezed orange juice. The orange peel needed to be removed quickly, so there was a Baron conveyor right next to the bar that took all the peels directly to a container. They also saved time on cleaning afterwards. This is also a way our CleverConveyor can be used.

If I was a rental company, a conveyor like this would have a huge significance to my business. First and foremost, you get a high-quality conveyor that is easily handled and stackable. Besides all the features, I assume you know from our old conveyors, the Clever-part gives the opportunity to save a hell of a lot of cost on:

• The operation of the conveyor.
• Fixing things that are faster and cheaper to fix in my own warehouse.

So, for me, it contributes really well to a rental company’s business – its saves both money and time.

Now the time has come for us to enter the learning phase. I hope that we can develop our dashboard, so it becomes even more user-friendly, and open more data that our customers are asking for. In addition, I hope and wish that we can learn so much from the user behaviour on the CleverConveyor that we become even more qualified to develop our CleverConveyors and all sorts of other products.

The sky is the limit!