There’s a new worker at our plant in Alexander. This one can work nights, weekends and never ever needs a break!
December 1 was the first day on the job for “Willard,” as we’re affectionately calling our new robot. Willard was installed by Chantland Company of Humboldt, Iowa, and Latham crew members spent five days learning how to program the robot and to integrate it into our bagging system. Willard does some heavy lifting! It can stack 18 bags of soybeans per minute, which greatly reduces the amount of physical labor required to move seed from the bagging line to the warehouse.
The addition of Willard frees up team members to complete other tasks, thus increasing our efficiency. Another benefit of Willard is built-in safety. Its electronic eyes will see when a foreign object (like someone’s hand) ventures into the work area; if so, the robot automatically and immediately shuts down.
When your Latham® Hi-Tech Soybeans get delivered in 2012, know they were probably stacked by “the new guy.” To see video of Latham’s robot in action, go to http://youtu.be/6IyB97uF2nI.
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