Learn about autonomous railcar loading solutions in this special promotional episode of Whole Grain podcast brought to us by RAYHAWK Technologies.
The RAYHAWK autonomous railcar loading solutions bring the latest in technology and digitization to reality; seamlessly integrating computer vision, machine learning and autonomous operations to ensure safe and efficient rail loading operations.
This episode features Tom Boehm, president of RAYHAWK Technologies, and his father, Ray Boehm, the inspiration behind the brand. They will share the story of RAYHAWK's inception and their mission to revolutionize railway loadout operations. They’ll also share how RAWHAWK is addressing industry gaps, improving safety and enhancing efficiency.
You’ll hear about the key features and technologies of RAWHAWK’s system, including the opening gantry, seal removal, cavity inspection, closing gantry and air knife. Presenters will discuss production efficiency, weather rating, insurance premium reduction and skilled labor shortages.
RAYHAWK’s commitment to safety through advanced precautions, autonomous area delineation and emergency stops is discussed and Tom Boehm elaborates on predictive maintenance and system reliability. You’ll also learn about the exploration of future advancements in autonomous railcar loading technology and their implications and RAYHAWK’s vision for the future, including innovations like truck sampling and liquid loading.
The Boehms are joined by Brooke Blessington from Landwerx and Dale Vinsand from Landus Cooperative. Blessington and Vinsand will share their perspectives on industry challenges and the impact of innovative technologies.
Listeners will learn about Landwerx and Landus, their roles in the grain industry and the challenges they face. Blessington and Vinsand will share how RAYHAWK’s technology helps mitigate these challenges.
Whole Grain Podcast is produced by Grain Elevator and Processing Society (GEAPS) and hosted by Jim Lenz.
Guest List:
•Tom Boehm - President, RAYHAWK Technologies Inc.
•Ray Boehm - Inspiration behind RAYHAWK Technologies Inc.
•Brooke Blessington - Innovation Hub Director at LANDWERX, Landwerx
•Dale Vinsand - Director Of Operations Support, Landus Cooperative
Take Action:
For more information on the topics discussed in this episode, check out the following links:
•RAYHAWK Autonomous Railcar Loading Solutions
•Videos of RAYHAWK Autonomous Railcar Loading Solutions
•The Team at RAYHAWK Technologies, Inc.
•Connect with RAYHAWK on LinkedIn
•Landus Cooperative Website
•LANDWERX Website
Tune in and discover how RAYHAWK Technologies is leading the charge in transforming grain handling operations. Don’t miss out on this insightful conversation.
Grain Elevator and Processing Society champions, connects and serves the global grain industry and its members. Be sure to visit GEAPS’ website to learn how you can grow your network, support your personal professional development, and advance your career. Thank you for listening to another episode of GEAPS’ Whole Grain podcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jim Lenz (00:02):
Stay tuned for an insightful conversation that
promises to shed light on thefuture of autonomous rail car
loading solutions.
Let's get started.
My name is Jim Lenz, your hostand producer of the show, and
(00:23):
director of global training andeducation at GEAPS, where the
mission of the Grain Elevatorand Processing Society is to
champion, connect and serve theglobal grain industry and our
members At GEAPS.
We work to be the globalcommunity and thought leader for
the grain industry, which feedsand fuels the world.
Thanks for listening today andfor joining the network of
(00:49):
thousands of other grainhandling and processing
professionals across the globetaking strategic steps to grow
professionally.
The Whole Grain Show will giveyou the competitive advantage to
win at work so you can makemore of an impact.
Joining us today are twodistinguished guests from
Rayhawk Technologies Inc.
A trailblazer in thisgroundbreaking technology.
We are thrilled to have TomBoehm, president of Rayhawk,
along with his father, Ray Boehm, the inspiration behind the
brand.
They'll be sharing how theircutting-edge technology is
(01:10):
reshaping the railway loadoutindustry.
Also, we are pleased to welcomeBrooke Blessington from
LANDWERX and Dale Vinsand fromLandus.
They'll provide valuableinsights into the industry
challenges and how Rayhawksolutions are addressing these
issues head-on.
We'll examine the key featuresof Rayhawk's innovative
autonomous rail car loadingsystem.
(01:32):
So get ready to learn howRayhawk Technologies is
transforming the grain handlingindustry with innovative
solutions that not only enhanceproductivity but also ensure
safety and reliability.
(01:52):
All right, today we have twospecial guests from Rayhawk
Technologies Inc.
A trailblazer in autonomousrail car loading solutions.
Joining us is Tom Boehm,president of Rayhawk, and Ray
Boehm, the inspiration behindthe brand, who will shed light
on how their innovativetechnology is reshaping the
railway loadout industry.
(02:13):
Also joining us are BrookeBlessington from Landworks and
Dale Vincent from Landis tohighlight the industry
challenges in this sector.
Thank you all for joining us.
Appreciate it.
It's going to be an excitingepisode.
Let's start off really broadand kind of narrow this down.
Let's hear from Tom Bain andhis father, ray.
(02:33):
Could you start help our WholeGrain Podcast listeners with a
sort of setup of the history,the story of how Rayhawk came to
be Well.
Tom Boehm, President of Ray (02:43):
The story goes back a few years now
.
In fact, it goes all the wayback to late 2019, when a client
in the industry had approachedus with an idea of automating
real car opening and closingprocesses in the efforts to
improve safety in theirindustrial setting.
At that time, there was notechnology available, but there
was hardware and computeradvancement.
(03:04):
At that time, there was notechnology available, but there
was hardware and computeradvancement.
And we are blessed with a veryintelligent group of engineers
and computer science people, andwe started passing the idea
around the table and saying isthis possible?
Could we do it?
Would we do it?
And after some time we startedgetting some traction on ways it
(03:24):
could be done, mechanicalattributes of it, the
complexities of it and so on.
In the meantime, we were doing afair amount of market research.
We were reaching out to a numberof clients in both the mining
and the agriculture industry toensure that there was a strong
need, that this was indeed achallenge in the industry, and I
would say that over the courseof a number of months and
(03:45):
upwards of close to a year, bothanswers kind of came together,
the technology started to takeshape and we really started to
gain a solid understanding ofthe importance of this
technology and what it couldmean to the safety and
efficiency and the operations oflarge-scale facilities in both
agriculture and mining.
(04:06):
And safety is no joke.
We all take it very, veryseriously and, regardless of the
industry vertical, everybody'sfacing the same challenges of
being able to do more with thepeople that they have and meet
the global demands on theirproducts.
So during that market researchtime, unbeknownst to my father,
(04:26):
he was being questionedrepeatedly about the safety
implications, as he had ahistory of working in the mining
and loading rail cars, andmaybe I'll pass it over to Dad
here to explain what some ofthose might have been Well back
in the day.
Ray Boehm, Inspiration Behind (04:42):
A lot of things have changed up
nowadays.
Like back when I startedloading cars, there was
virtually no safety.
You were on your own up there,there was no safety belt, there
was no glasses, there wasnothing, just you and the rail
car, the rail car.
(05:03):
But as the safety got better,you got the glasses and you had
earplugs and everything justpicked up in the safety lines,
and so it came a long way, butyou still have to open them car
lids.
Somehow Somebody has to openthose car lids and it's just
(05:24):
that simple.
And it's just that simple andit's just great to see the
technology that they got and thesafety that is going to be
provided by that opening system.
Like it's huge, it's reallysomething.
Jim Lenz (05:48):
So, Ray, you're the inspiration behind this.
If you don't mind, could youadd a little bit more?
Your history, your profession.
Ray Boehm, Inspiration Behin (05:51):
It went way back to 1968 when the
mine first opened, and at thattime it was mostly bags, believe
it or not.
We loaded bags into boxcars andthat didn't pan out because the
nails were.
You know, grain boxcars.
And that didn't pan out becausethe nails were.
You know grain boxcars are likethe wood is all worn, the nails
are sticking out, and so theykind of got away from that and
(06:13):
then they started going to bulk.
That's where the rail caropener lids opening from the top
began and it just progressed astime went on, like everything
else.
The safety got better, theloading got faster, and it's
just the way it is.
And I spent 11 years in onemine loading rail cars.
(06:36):
So through those years there'sdifferent things that went on.
You know it's just a normalprocedure on, you know it's just
a normal procedure.
Jim Lenz (06:45):
Let's dive into Rayhawk Technologies' mission in
revolutionizing railway loadoutoperations.
Tom Boehm, President of Ra (06:51):
It's really straightforward.
You know it's our goal toimprove safety and efficiency
through autonomous loadingsolutions, if we can remove the.
You know there's lots to besaid around safety and I think
Dad said it well that over timeyou take the technologies that
you have and you adopt them tobe able to improve the working
conditions for people, and thatincluded things like the fall of
(07:13):
the belt just a simple beltthat then progressed to a fall
arrest harness as we see ittoday is a five-point harness
and then to a retractablelanyard and then to a cable
track, if you will, that peoplecould walk up and down rail cars
and have a little bit moremobility.
But these are all just smallsteps towards protecting around
(07:35):
the larger risk, and the largerrisk is that somebody's still
working at heights, somebodycould still fall off the rail
car or fall into the rail car.
You're still working ininclement weather and various
conditions it could be dust,could be heat, could be extreme
cold and you're still dealingwith the challenges of the job,
which is it's kind ofbackbreaking work.
I think, dad, you had said itbest in a prior discussion that
(07:57):
you know when you look over a12-hour shift and the length of
a unit train and how many carsyou fill during that shift.
You're bending over, touchingyour toes approximately 1,500
times per shift, and you knowwhen you think, okay, that's
(08:17):
fine, it's not fine for me, butit's fine for others.
Then you add in the fact thatyou actually have to do some
physical exertion while you'rebent over, whether that be
operating a latch or reefing ona lid, and then you start to
believe and understand okay, wehave lower back injuries, we
have twisted ankles, we haveskinned knees, we have
absenteeism from work, we haveinsurance claims, and it just
goes on and on and on.
(08:39):
And even to the later technologythat large-scale producers and
shippers have adopted, and thatis continuous loading of a loop
track system where the trainnever stops.
So all these other precursorsthat I just described were on
stationary.
Well, now we're actually uppingthe game.
We're making the real car movewhile we're doing all this, and
(09:00):
people are required to transferfrom one car to the next without
getting off the cars.
And you know, if you have somebackground in industry, you
start to put this together inyour mind and say, holy smokes.
So the car is moving, the personis stationary while they're
doing the job, then the lanyardis moving.
There's just so many variables.
(09:21):
Fortunately, we've got somereally heads up people that are
doing this work.
That's got a lot to do withtheir safety awareness, but the
results are, or the future is,that we're increasing production
, we're increasing speed, we'reincreasing all these things.
We're just we're racing towards.
The risks are getting higher,even though we're putting all
(09:44):
the technology we can.
So why don't we deal with theproblem?
Why don't we just take theperson off the rail car?
Yeah, just take them out ofharm's way.
Jim Lenz (09:53):
You just described obviously a very dynamic work
environment.
So many factors that go intothis.
Let's make it easier, safer,efficient and improve the
process to load and unload Ray.
How do you think Ray Hawk isgoing to change the industry?
Ray Boehm, Inspiration Beh (10:09):
Well , there's more than just the
danger of being up there, likeone example that I found, which
I didn't mention in the lastinterview in a cold day, when
you get out there at 8 in themorning and they have their
track mobiles plugged in,they're inside and everything,
and when you fire up a colddiesel motor, the inside of that
(10:33):
building is just full of dieselsmoke and you're breathing that
in and there's no avoiding it,because it's just part of the
thing.
That's just one of manyadvantages of not being up there
.
You know somebody has to openthem lids, but if you can do it
(10:54):
without having the people upthere, that's fantastic.
Tom Boehm, President of Ray (10:59):
You know, one way we had talked
about it in the past is that youknow, once upon a time safety
glasses weren't a thing either.
You know, they just weren't inexistence and they were invented
and they were duplicated.
And now they're so widespreadthat you know, to not wear
safety glasses in the workplacewould be almost criminal.
You know, in a lot of waysright, it's just a norm, it's
(11:22):
not even an exception.
It's a norm, it's not even anexception.
And when you look at what theRayhawk technology means to the
safety around loading rail cars,we're just in that early
adoption and commercializationphase.
But in reality, if you lookyears down the road, the
interest from government, frominsurance companies, from
(11:44):
large-scale industrial users isso strong that it's not hard to
see that, if you were to lookfive to eight years down the
road, that it's going to becommonplace everywhere.
Jim Lenz (11:50):
Yeah, revolutionary.
It sounds like the mind shift Ithink that is going to take
shape over these next couple ofyears is just, I think, going to
be amazing.
So you both kind of discussedthe motivation behind developing
autonomous rail car loadingsolutions to address industry
challenges in the grain industry, in the mining industry and
other industries.
So, adding to that sentiment,that statement, explain again
(12:15):
how the technology fixes thoseindustry gaps and saves lives.
Tom Boehm, President of Ra (12:20):
Well , quite simply, it just removes
the human capital on a farm'sway.
It's as simple as that.
Without having to put our humancapital on top of the rail cars
, we can still perform thefunction, which is critical.
I mean, we're in a massivecontinent that has the ability
to produce and export so manygoods around the world that
(12:42):
hauling these goods to ports todo to circulate them around the
world is critical.
It is the, I mean it'sabsolutely critical to our, to
our operations.
Without that we can't produce.
We would only produce what wecan consume locally and
therefore our business is isunderpinned by the ability to
not only provide that functionbut to do it safely.
(13:05):
If we can't do it safely and ifwe can't do it efficiently, well
then all the other things, allthe other pressures of business
come to play, from negativepublicity to a lack of favor,
perhaps from our shareholders,our investors, to we're just not
holding our position as a worldclass and when I say the
collective, the royal, we I'm onbehalf of the customer base,
(13:27):
that it's everyone's goal to beseen as a grade, a investment,
top, world class producingcompany that instills confidence
in not just the investor butthe customer themselves.
Everybody wants to be a part ofthat story, knowing that
they're buying from asustainable company that offers
low risk and a steady supplychain, and that's more than just
(13:50):
a brand on a bag that's got todo with.
Are you hurting people?
Are you a risky operator?
Are you always shut downbecause things happen?
All these things come into thepicture, right.
Jim Lenz (14:02):
Yeah, you provided a really good capsule of the
dynamic environment.
All right, so, tom and Ray,you've definitely shared
insights into Ray Hawk's journeyand your commitment to safety,
efficiency and reliability.
It's good to know thebackground, but now let's
provide listeners what this isall about.
We want to have you provide anunderstanding of autonomous rail
(14:24):
car loading solutions, so, ifyou don't mind, let's go ahead
and explore the key features andtechnologies utilized by
Rayhawk's autonomous rail carloading system.
Let's start with opening gantry.
Tom Boehm, President of Ray (14:38):
The opening gantry is replicated
with the closing gantry.
It is the same architecture,the same structure and in fact,
depending on the function ifwe're talking about opening and
closing lids we've built anambidextrous tool that can be
utilized for both.
Now, indeed, it utilizesdifferent sections of the
computer code and it usesdifferent steps and processes,
(15:01):
but the architecture as a whole,the mechanical structure, is
very much the same.
So just to talk a little bitabout the opening side, this
technology uses three differentcameras on it and as the rail
car as if you can imagine, Iguess for the listeners to
describe this system it looks alot like an overhead gantry
(15:21):
crane that you might see in theindustry, where you have two
long rails suspended off theground of a certain height and
then you have a bridge that goesacross that with a trolley that
allows the crane to movelongitudinally along the long
rails and then across the shortrails.
So we've adopted some of thosesimilar engineering principles
(15:44):
and reapplied them in a uniqueway and that is to be controlled
completely by a computer whichis instructed by the vision
recognition system.
Now there's other littleoverlaying technologies in there
, but if you can envision as arail car comes into the
operating window of the overallgantry structure, then the
cameras can identify that it isa rail car.
(16:05):
It can identify the orientation,the location, the height, the
width, everything about the railcar, and in particular focus in
on the latches and on the lidpositions so it knows is the lid
closed or are the latchesclosed?
Is the lid open or are thelatches open?
Is it coming in with the hingeson the north side or the south
side, or the east or west, andso on?
(16:25):
And based on those orientationsand based on the recognition
system, the cameras thatidentify hey, that looks like a
latch 99, certain of it, it'llgo down and it'll now start to
execute a specific set ofactions to be able to open the
locking mechanisms and open thelatches.
(16:46):
Now, it's not just one latch,there may be multiple latches.
So the computer system needs tobe intelligent enough to know
what kind of rail car is this.
Does it have three lids withsix latches?
Does it have five lids on it?
Does there overlapping lids?
These types of unique aspectsthat are critical, you know, so
they can make the rightoperations to open rail car.
Jim Lenz (17:10):
Excellent, Great overview.
So that was of the openinggantry and you shared.
The closing gantries are verysimilar to that.
What about the air knifeenterprise solution?
Can you describe that?
Tom Boehm, President of RayH (17:24):
We live in such a large continent,
we can have all kinds of things.
We can have snow, we can haveice, we can have dust, we can
have lots of different thingshappening.
So often rail cars may come intothe operating window and they
may be covered with 6 inches to12 inches of snow, or maybe more
(17:46):
if they're sitting stationaryfor some time.
And we'll need, in order for thecameras to be able to recognize
where the lids and latches andorientations, there's going to
be a requirement to move theproduct of snow or other debris
off the top of the rail car.
So what we've done is we'vedeveloped a method of utilizing
a combination of a plowingsystem to reduce the bulk to a
(18:07):
brooming system to help agitateand get rid of, maybe, the stuff
that's more frozen orcrystallized, and, lastly, a
blower to help clean the snow orthe other debris from between
the walking rails and the lidedges and so on, to get it as
clean as possible.
Now, interestingly enough,we've also been asked to utilize
(18:29):
that same technology on theoutgoing side, after the system
is closed, and the predominantreason there is that in the
event that a rail car isoverfilled and there's a little
bit of spillage on the side.
It's important to make surethose rail cars leave clean, so
we want to get rid of any kindof product that might be
overfilled and off from theperimeters to make sure that the
(18:51):
rail car leaves the facility asclean as possible.
Jim Lenz (18:55):
Wow, that's really exciting.
Of course, I'd like to doresearch before I meet with
folks I interviewed for thewhole grain show.
I was invested in that.
I wanted to see this in action.
I did, and when I read that youknow cause there can be a lot
of snow on top of this by thetime it gets there, I'm like
what is?
What are they going to do?
(19:16):
You've answered that solutionand now I just heard that
there's a blower that can dothat.
I'm like my mind was alreadyblown.
My mind is like kaboom.
That's just really impressive.
And you've thought about theproblems, realities of what can
(19:37):
happen as they come in.
So now let's talk about how itaffects production efficiency.
Tom Boehm, President of Ra (19:44):
Well , yes, let's do that, but I
don't want to miss the secondpart of your first question.
That was on the enterprisesolution.
Yes, and the reason that willconnect together with the blower
assembly and so on and into theoperating efficiency is that
the enterprise solution allowsus to capture so much
information on this rail carbeing filled that it could be
(20:08):
very valuable to the producer orto the shipper.
Now, just as we had mentionedthat the rail car is expected to
be clean when it leaves thefacility, what about pictures?
What about recorded informationthat is specific to the seals
that may be applied to the railcar or specific to the actual
rail car itself?
You know, often when we talk alot about what we know in the
(20:33):
industry is a transfer of care,custody and control no different
than when a farmer or aproducer ships their product to
a terminal or to a facility.
They transfer that producteither under a contract or some
commercial terms, but ultimatelythey're transferring the care,
custody and control of that tothen be loaded on a train, which
then goes to a port facility,on a ship and perhaps to another
(20:55):
country.
It's very important to havethat information to say, you
know what, when we received thatmaterial from the farmer, from
the producer.
It was a certain grade, acertain quality and therefore
we've got good record of that.
There's technology for that Now, when it gets loaded into the
rail car, having the ability toprove that the rail car was
(21:16):
clean, that the rail car wasproperly filled, that the
product quality was there andwas properly secured until it
gets to the port facility, thenit transfers again.
All this information ispossible to package together
with our cavity inspectiontechnology, with our seal
application or removaltechnology to record the seal
(21:37):
numbers, our car recordinginformation, and can be packaged
with a logistics shippingdocument to basically be part of
that information trail fromfarm to table, if you will.
And so that's super important.
Now I'll jump over to your otherquestion about efficiency.
If you know, often rail carswill be delivered.
(21:59):
Um, you know, we have somewonderful rail companies that
ship the product down the rail.
That's their logistics teamthat has to maximize those rail
utilization and therefore, whenyou get a load, when you get a
train, a unit train to fill,sometimes it shows up exactly on
schedule and sometimes it maybedoesn't just because of other
complications, and often whatyou will find is that we know a
(22:21):
unit train is coming, but wedon't know exactly when.
Sometimes it shows up a littlelate, sometimes it shows up a
little early.
If it shows up a little early,often you know producers or
producers sorry shippers willhave to scramble to get their
loading team ready to go to getworking on this.
If it happens to be over aweekend, sometimes that means
calling the crew in to get thework done.
(22:42):
What this does is that you'realways giving a certain amount
of time to get the job done andif you don't have the people
ready waiting to do that whichmay not be the most efficient
business model as it is but ifyou don't have those people
ready and waiting now, yourclock is ticking.
And if you don't release thosecars on schedule, then there's
(23:03):
other demurrage charges and railfines and so on from the actual
transport carrier, from ourrail lines.
So often what we see is we seea compressing timeline come into
play that is forcing shippersto be able to load faster and
more efficiently, you know, sothat they can meet the schedule.
So it is a good example.
Sometimes you'll get a railcars dropped off with an eight
hour window to get the job done,but by the time you get
(23:26):
everybody there, you've only gotsix hours left.
How important is the speed ofloading now?
And, as we had talked aboutearlier, the faster we load, the
higher the probability there isfor error.
And the severity of errors whenyou're working around the rail
industry is not fantastic, right, you're dealing with big
equipment that doesn't stopeasily.
You know mistakes are not veryforgiving, right.
(23:48):
So with the Rayhawk technologywe can actually help meet those
expectations.
We can help start voting soonerbecause you're not waiting on
people to arrive at the worksite.
We can have more consistentoperation where, if nobody has a
hurt back or an injury or evenhas to put under fall arrest
(24:09):
harness, we can start votingright away and help the shipper
meet their deadlines, meet theirtimetables, while deploying
human capital to other, perhapsmore meaningful tasks like grain
cleaning or other aspects ofthe operation that don't require
them to be working at heights.
So efficiency is a big part ofthat and through our research we
(24:30):
see people racing towardswanting to load a standard rail
car in under three minutes.
That's fast, and if you were toever watch somebody working on
top of a rail car, for them towork at that speed continuously,
one after the other, especiallyon a loop track system where
the train is not stopping.
That's a very demanding job.
Jim Lenz (24:53):
Great clarity.
You're providing incredibleunderstanding of your solution.
Let's jump to weather rating.
Can you speak on that?
Tom Boehm, President of R (25:03):
We're a Canadian company and often we
take our jokes around the worldas far as the extreme climate
conditions we get.
In reality it's a beautifulcountry up here but we do get
some cold weather for sure andhonestly we get some extreme
heat.
To quote in Celsius, we can beminus 40 degrees centigrade,
(25:26):
which is darn cold, in thedepths of winter and we can be
in excess of plus 40 degreescentigrade in the summer depths
of winter and we can be inexcess of plus 40 degrees
centigrade in the summer.
Both can have adverse effects,especially on the mechanical and
structural components and onthe computer side.
So our goal, through the designof Rayhawk, has been
mechanically simple and computercomplex.
(25:46):
I referenced earlier that ourdesign is a close cousin, if you
will, to a standard gantrystyle crane and for those that
are familiar with those cranesthey can recognize that that
technology has been in use fordecades.
That is, it's a proventechnology.
It's got great reliability,data behind the mechanical
aspects of it and as we've beenspecific to select certain
(26:11):
computer hardware, we've beenvery cognizant about what will
work at these extremetemperatures.
So we have a minus 40 to plus40 temperature rating on our
equipment and you know, honestly, we feel quite confident it can
operate with outside of thosewindows.
But to be honest with you, whenyou're shopping nobody seems to
publish ratings beyond thosewindows.
(26:32):
So we're kind of bound by themanufacturer to a certain point.
Jim Lenz (26:37):
Now, both of you touched on insurance premiums.
There is a clear link betweenyour solution at Rayhawk
Technologies autonomous rail carloading systems and its
connection with reduction andinsurance premiums.
So if you could go in a littlemore detail with that, that'd be
(26:57):
great.
Tom Boehm, President of Ray (26:59):
You bet and you know there's
certain things that we knowpre-Rayhawk if you will and
there's certain things thatwe're learning even to this day.
I'll maybe start with kind ofthe workers' compensation,
employee injury type of approach, and I'm sure we all appreciate
that.
You know we want everybody tocome to work safely and go home
safely, but we've all been doingthis long enough to know that
(27:22):
lower back injuries, twistedknees, these types of things
happen in the workplace andthere's a cost to that.
You know there's an efficiencycost to operations that now that
worker may be missing for aperiod of time and maybe you
have to hire temporary labor orshift your resources around to
meet your operational goals.
(27:43):
But behind the scenes, yourunderwriters that are insuring
these employee compensationpackages look at your injury
prevention practices and theysay, well, how many claims a
year do you have and the moreclaims you have the at your
injury prevention practices andthey say, well, how many claims
a year do you have, and the moreclaims you have, the higher
your insurance premiums, yourmultiplier rates go for the
hours that are worked on the jobsite and this is something that
(28:06):
a lot of people don't often paytoo close attention to because
generally it hits more of acorporate office level or higher
and not necessarily at the sitespecific.
But insurance premiums foremployee coverage is not cheap
insurance.
This could be tens of thousandsto hundreds of thousands of
dollars in annual premiums ifyou happen to have more injuries
(28:30):
than others, right?
So that's a big part of it.
Since Rayhawk's been getting outthere, particularly after we
kind of showcased and gotlaunched at the Jeeps in Kansas
City at GEAPS Exchange, we'vebeen fortunate to have some
conversation with some very,very large corporate
underwriters, people that areinsuring the agriculture
(28:50):
industry and the miningindustries, and they're asking a
lot of questions.
They're asking a lot ofquestions around how this can
reduce risk, how this can reduce, you know, any kind of employee
injuries or business risk tothese facilities.
And it's been a greatconversation, especially to hear
the feedback from their side tosay, you know, they nod their
head and they're like you knowwhat, if people are looking for
(29:13):
ways to reduce their operationalpremiums towards lost
production insurance, unplannedoutages, where are the critical
points of their operation?
This is great tech, this is thetech they can adopt to help
lower their business risk.
And being the president ofRayok Technologies and having
the opportunity to be involvedin some other companies, I know
(29:34):
firsthand what it means tomanage business risk.
If you can reduce your businessrisk, everywhere, from your
financial institutions to yourinsurance underwriters,
everybody looks at you morefavorably.
You're just a better investmenton everybody's part.
Jim Lenz (29:50):
Again, great clarity, really important points to come
across, I think, for ourlisteners to take into context
of this solution.
So that kind of leads to thenext part of the conversation.
We're going to bring in ourguests here from Landus and
LANDWERX.
So very excited to have BrookeBlessington from LANDWERX and
(30:13):
Dale Vinsand from Landis.
Don't want to make anyassumptions.
We have listeners from 72different countries have
listened to this whole greenpodcast.
As a result, if we could haveBrooke Blessington here, step
into this conversation, tell usabout LANDWERX and Dale Vinson
tell us about Land, highlight alittle bit about what you do,
(30:36):
what the organizations do, I'dappreciate that and we'll kind
of link that then to thisconversation here that we've had
so far.
Brooke Blessington, Innova (30:44):
Okay , Dale, do you want to start off
or do you want me to go?
Dale Vinsand, Director Of O (30:47):
You know, brooke, I'd let ladies go
first, but it makes a littlemore sense for me to lead off
here.
So my name is Dale Vinsand.
I'm the director of grainoperations at Landus Cooperative
.
We are a 60-plus location grainand agronomy cooperative
located mostly in the state ofIowa.
We do reach out to other statesnow with different versions of
(31:08):
that footprint 600-plusemployees.
Many of those are related toour day-to-day operations,
especially in loading rail cars.
We've got 14 differentfacilities that load rail cars.
Many of those are 110 shuttlecapable on class one railroads.
The majority of those are.
So our exposure to this is adaily item for us at Landus
(31:31):
Cooperative and it's somethingwe've been researching over the
past couple of years.
We've been very aggressive atupgrading our facilities to
allow them to be managed and runby fewer people as labor
becomes a shortage out in ruralAmerica.
That includes the actualmechanical facilities as well as
our computer operating itemssuch as our PLCs and our remote
(31:53):
operation capabilities and howwe support those as well.
And one thing that as a groupwe always recognize that we are
going to continue to strugglewith was how we are going to
handle that person being on topof the rail car.
Many people in our industry,including myself, always worried
about how we were going toreplace what your eyes and
(32:15):
thumbs can do of the human body,and I was very excited to be
Tom at this year's Jeepsexchange down in Kansas City.
I've been a member of GEAPS for19 years, getting ready to go
on to my 20th, and I'm alwaysexcited about the technology we
can bring back each time.
So I'll turn it over to you,Brooke, because I met you as you
joined our organization andthis is one of the technology we
(32:36):
can bring back each time.
So I'll turn it over to you,Brooke, because I met you as you
joined our organization andthis is one of the things we had
challenged LANDWERX with.
So go ahead, Brooke.
Brooke Blessington, Innova (32:42):
Well , thanks, Dale.
As Dale said, my name is Brookeand I serve as the director of
LANDWERX, so LANDWERX serves asthe innovation arm of Landus.
At Landus, we believe that foodsecurity is an important
component of national security.
We do everything that we can tosupport all of the owners and
operators and everyone alongthat food chain supply.
And at LANDWERX we're designedto put farmers at the center of
(33:05):
everything that we do and wedeliver those in-demand
solutions directly to theoperators themselves and we also
work to further that foodsecurity initiative that we have
.
And at Landus and at LANDWERX,we are consistently engaging
with startups and othercompanies that we think will be
changemakers in agriculture.
So I was absolutely delightedat our recent Innovation
(33:28):
Connector events that Dale madethe introduction between our
team and Rayhawk.
And at Landis and at Landworks,safety is ingrained in our
culture.
It's a part of everything thatwe do.
Like I said, we care abouteveryone all along that supply
chain, whether we're telling thestory of the way that our food
is produced, as Tom alluded toearlier, or making sure that our
employees and everyone alongthat supply chain is safe, from
(33:49):
the minute the plant is plannedfor, to harvest it and then all
the way to delivering to the enduser.
Jim Lenz (33:55):
Thank you Gail, thank you Brooke.
So, broadly speaking, every oneof us here in this call are
concerned about and play a rolein food security right, and then
we bring it down further.
We want people in a situationthat's as safe as possible.
So both of you just representyour organizations well
(34:16):
described it and you're alwayslooking at areas for improvement
and support and you're lookingfor solutions out there, and you
saw Rayhawk Technologies andhad conversations with them.
So let's go ahead and, if youdon't mind, brooke and Dale,
highlight the industry challengea little bit more.
(34:37):
Highlight how they areimpacting LANDWERX and Landus.
Dale Vinsand, Director Of (34:41):
Well , I'll start there from the
truly operational side of thebusiness.
Well, I'll start there from thetruly operational side of the
business.
Dale, within Landus, we havemultiple trains being loaded
throughout our company.
I think at one point we wellnot think.
I do know that we loaded ninetrains in 48 hours at one point
(35:02):
last year.
And when you're sharing laboracross different facilities,
that is, it's really taxing onour field employees to be able
to handle that amount of grainmoving at any given time.
So being able to startinvestigating with Tom and the
team at Rayhawk the ability toreduce our labor requirements
per train both has a financialincentive to it as well as
(35:23):
sharing our resources and makingour labor more efficient with
the skilled labor that we haveavailable to us, that would
probably be the biggestchallenge that we see from the
truly operational side of thebusiness.
Thank you, dale.
Ray Boehm, Inspiration B (35:36):
Brooke .
Brooke Blessington, Innova (35:37):
Yeah , at LANDWERX we really
specialize in collaboration, andso we see Rayhawk being part of
the solutions to the problemsthat we're seeing takes all
kinds, whether we're engagingwith other industry, academia
and really just weaving that alltogether to make meaningful
impacts in the community.
And so, knowing that we'reputting people in harm's way in
(35:57):
the transportation supply chain,there's a lot of work to be
done across our industry andacross the continent in those
areas, and so we at Landus andat LANDWERX we engage with a
number of different startups andwe closely monitor what these
companies are doing and look forfuture collaboration
opportunities so that we canwork together to bring the best
solutions for our farmers andfor all of our end users in
(36:19):
agriculture.
Jim Lenz (36:20):
Great points there and we're excited that you and
your organization is investingin new technologies out there
and it's great that you saw andexposed to Rayhawk technologies
through Dale and what he foundabout it at the recent GEAPS
Exchange.
So that's fantastic to get allparties together here.
Thank you both very much.
(36:41):
Let's touch again on ensuringsafety and reliability.
Let's touch again on ensuringsafety and reliability.
Let's highlight Rayhawk'scommitment to safety through
advanced safety precautions andfeatures.
Brooke Blessington, Innovati (36:55):
At LANDWERX, we're always looking
for different types ofinnovation.
So we look at innovation thatcould be incremental and
improving a product that'salready out there.
We look at adjacent innovation,where a different type of
technology is brought over intothe agricultural industry, or
sometimes technology that existswithin agriculture and
transferring that out.
And then there's other timesthat what we're really after is
that transformational innovation, and I know that Tom was
(37:17):
talking about all the solutionsthat they brought forth and, Jim
, I believe you called itrevolutionary, and I think that
that really speaks to the typeof innovation that we need and
the type of innovation thatreally will change the way that
agriculture goes to compete inthe days ahead.
So we really are excited tolook at the way that Rayhawk is
taking a different perspective,looking at safety and protecting
(37:38):
those who are out there,providing for all of us and
really transforming aninfrastructure that we all know
and use every single day formingan infrastructure that we all
know and use every single day.
Dale Vinsand, Director Of O (37:51):
Jim , in addition to that, I'd like
just to follow up when we'retalking about Ray Hawk and the
members of Tom's team over there.
I'm very impressed by Tom'steam's ability to solve a
complex problem, so the reasonthat I introduced Tom and his
team to Brooke and the team atLandworks was to engage on other
topics that we have comingforward.
Tom reached out and solvedsomething that many in the
(38:11):
industry hadn't tried working onyet, and I want that same
commitment to other problemsthat we have identified within
our business.
Jim Lenz (38:20):
Can you discuss how the system delineates autonomous
areas to prevent operation whenpersonnel are nearby and the
implementation of SIL-ratedemergency stops?
Tom Boehm, President of RayHa (38:32):
I could probably take that one
there.
So for sure you know, when we'redealing with autonomous
solutions, particularly whenyou're dealing with rail cars
and you're dealing with largegantry style structures like the
Rayhawk is there's opportunityfor injury if safety is not
followed.
So, as you can imagine, we wouldwant to make sure that kind of
(38:55):
human capital or employees arenot in the working area while
the Rayhawk system is engaged.
Therefore, it's very importantto have the best of the
accelerated safety equipmentproximity detection, light
curtains and so on in place toprevent any access or unplanned
(39:16):
entry into the working zone byany kind of workers that may be
in the area.
This is something that'scustomized site by site because
there's a lot of variability outthere in facilities and how
they load rail cars, how theyaccess rail cars Is it by a
(39:39):
gangway that drops down to therail car?
Is it by a working platform?
Alongside of our detailedengineering phase, and we work
closely with each client to makesure that the safety system
exceeds their safety policiesand procedures, and we take that
all the way through to operatortraining and a full
commissioning process to makesure that these systems are in
(40:00):
place and maintained in years tocome, that the systems are
checked regularly, so that everyday can be a safe day.
Jim Lenz (40:09):
Excellent, Tom.
I want to invite you toelaborate on predictive
maintenance modeling and itsrole in ensuring system
reliability and uptime, for sure.
Tom Boehm, President of RayH (40:20):
So , as I mentioned earlier that
we've borrowed a few bits andpieces of technology,
particularly on the mechanicalaspects for this creation, from
the overhead crane industry, andthere's a lot of history of
gantry-style crane operationsout there.
In a former life I actually hadthe opportunity to manage a
(40:43):
crane services company at onepoint in time, and as a part of
our business.
It was an arm of one of ourbusinesses and you know regular
maintenance of overhead cranesis often, more often than not,
focused around the wind chainsystems, the cable systems, the
hooks and the brakes and so on.
Indeed, the trolleys and theend trucks and things like that
(41:04):
are actually a very, verydurable part of the overhead
crane system and that's the partthat we're borrowing and
bringing into our technology.
Now we have a patented designthroughout North America for
this technology thatmechanically simple, computer
complex strategy to allow usersthe confidence to say you know,
(41:28):
if that beam happens to crack,there's a local guy that I know
can help fix that.
If there's a bearing goes on anend truck.
Well, there's a handful of craneservice companies in the area
that we know stock parts forthat particular bearing.
You know it's because weappreciate that uptime is
everything for that particularbearing, you know, is because we
(41:50):
appreciate that uptime iseverything With the computer
complex side.
It's very easy to deployover-the-wire type support and
solutions while also ensuringthat we have local partners that
can help if something needs tobe tested or a voltage needs to
be measured.
Or you know, we need sometechnical hands-on on the site
level and all the way back tothat measured, or you know we
need some technical hands-on onthe site level and all the way
back to that enterprise solution.
(42:11):
With the technology we'redeploying we can actually even
monitor the motor torques thatare running this equipment.
So if we start to see thatthere's a trend in motor torque
value that is changing over time, that we can relate that
against temperature, we canrelate that against seasonality,
we can relate that againstnumber of operations and by
(42:32):
trending that across a widerspectrum of a number of RIOC
installations we start to getsome predictive modeling that
can then give us some advancenotice, say, hey, you know what
things are, okay now, but maybenext year we should look at
replacing a bearing or makingsure you clean your rails or you
know various parts like that.
Jim Lenz (42:50):
Very, very thorough.
Thank you so much.
All right, now let's dive intohow things were set up in Ray's
day and how really not a wholelot has changed.
Some has changed, but not muchhas changed today.
Ray Boehm, Inspiration Behi (43:05):
Ray has changed, but not much has
changed today.
Right, I can't really commenton all the things that have
changed in the last 20 years,but before that it just I don't
know.
Like I said, we used to have tocatch samples with a take a
(43:25):
pail on top of the car and twoscoops out of each hopper.
We were on a three hopper car,which most commonly we were
loaded at that time we used tohave to also catch three samples
.
So you're on there again, andnow I'm sure they've got
automatic samplers.
Tom Boehm, President of RayH (43:42):
We all offer a little bit of
support there.
I think everybody agrees thatsome of the process equipment
has helped.
You know, as you mentioned, dad, about sampling.
Now there's the equipment thatis going to help with that and,
as Landis and Landworks knows,there's a lot of change in
process technology in thefilling equipment.
(44:03):
But the one thing that hasn'tchanged is the full arrest and
the worker on top of the railcar is still there.
And if we want to say what'schanged around that, we have
changed that environment becausewith all this advanced and
processed equipment I think,dale, you mentioned earlier PLCs
and automation and advancementwe're able to work faster than
(44:24):
we ever could.
The chute size itself is evenbigger right and the scaling
systems are quicker.
Everything gets sped up,everything's sped up and, as we
know, with speed things happenfaster, good or bad.
So if we still have that personon top of the rail car, they're
still in harm's way.
So if we still have that personon top of the road car, they're
(44:45):
still in harm's way.
Jim Lenz (44:47):
Now let's kind of lead back to Landis and
Landworks here with Dale andBrooke.
Can you highlight?
Dale Vinsand, Director Of O (44:57):
how the Rayhawk system would
mitigate those challenges.
I'll take that one, jim, just alittle bit.
So our relationship withRayhawk is just getting off to a
good, solid start here andwe're recording this in early
May, which is a heavy agronomyseason for us and really takes a
lot of our personnel to executethat here within our
organization for the farmers.
So as we come out of that,we've identified a team that's
(45:20):
going to start working with someof the information that Tom has
given us for our review of thisproduct and taking steps to
start the implementation.
There's a lot of things that wehave to think about and work
through with the different raillines on its implementation at
our facility.
But, getting down to it, ourorganization's goal is to really
(45:44):
work at starting to alleviatethat need for the person on top
of the rail car, just long term.
That is the main driver for thisconversation.
There's lots of things whenwe're looking at the capital
expenditure versus the return onthat investment that are
somewhat unable to be quantified.
You got to jump to a lot ofscenarios about injuries and the
(46:06):
number one goal is justeliminating that injury or the
possibility of it, and you knowwe talk about fall protection
and stuff like that and that'sprobably the first major risk
everybody thinks about.
But we do load rail, car andsome of that bitter cold or that
extreme heat which are verytaxing on the human body as well
.
So from a frostbite standpoint,the cold and heat exhaustion on
(46:28):
the really hot days.
And the other one that fallsinto it is thunderstorms and
lightning.
We suspend operations duringthat time for our personnel
safety, so it's one more areathat this can help alleviate
some of those needs.
Tom Boehm, President of RayH (46:41):
It was something that a potential
customer shared with us as wellis that we're very focused on
the safety aspects and they hadactually offered that.
We're missing a key driver hereand that is equality and
opportunity in the workplace.
That the loading of rail carsbecause it's a very laborious
and demanding on the body, it'slimited to a certain body type.
(47:06):
We'll say that People got to beable to physically do that work
over and over and, as we'vetalked about earlier in the show
here, there's a reducing levelof people in the workforce that
want to.
We just don't have large farmfamilies anymore and our smaller
centers are becoming lesspopulated and people are moving
to the cities more often andwe're struggling to find people
(47:28):
and resources to help,especially in the rural areas,
and do this work.
I think we're missing a goodchunk of our available force and
the fact that this is a taskthat's kind of a hazard to say.
It's kind of built for that160-pound to 250-pound body type
that can just have the strengthto rip those lids open and go
(47:51):
through the physical demands ofit.
We can automate this.
That changes everything Now.
It opens up your potentialworkforce even to perhaps
somebody that's not physicallycapable to be able to be in the
control room and running thesystem right, and that's a huge
part of it for every businessout there.
Brooke Blessington, Innovatio (48:10):
I think that you know, when you
consider agriculture being oneof the oldest and most
traditional industries that arethere, like every other industry
, we have to be able to evolveand become even more efficient.
And just the story of Ray andhis experience as an operator
down in the mine informing theRay Hawk solution that's really
important in innovation thatyou're considering who the
(48:30):
people are who will be usingthat.
You know somebody who hasinsider knowledge and able to
come up with the bestcapabilities and the best
solutions for the future and,like Tom was just saying, just
expanding that workforce acrossthe sector, just attracting new
talent, bringing the youth intowhat agriculture will become and
providing moretechnology-centered solutions.
(48:51):
I think attracts a differenttype of perspective and that can
just continue to leverage thosenew perspectives into
groundbreaking and game-changingtechnologies like what Ray Hawk
has come up with here.
Jim Lenz (49:04):
Yeah, I like that all of you brought this down not
just to an organizational level,not to an industry level.
You're really talking aboutindividuals and the care and
concern that you have for that.
So you know, if you look atindustries overall, different
sectors agriculture is actuallyone of the most efficient
(49:26):
industries.
Now you're taking it to a wholeother level in addition to that
, so excellent.
So let's turn to futuredevelopments and industry impact
.
Let's see if we provide someimpact here from the group on
exploring the potential futuredevelopments in autonomous rail
car loading technology and theirimplications for the industry,
(49:47):
for the railway loadout industry.
Tom Boehm, President of Ra (49:49):
Well , you know, thanks for the
question and through the wholecontext of the conversation
we've been really focusing onloading the bulk granular
materials into open style, opentop hopper style cars.
But that's only a small area ofwhat is shipped down the rail.
Specific to the granular, we'vetalked about the air knife
(50:11):
solution, we've talked about thecavity inspection, we've talked
about the seal removal, sealinstallation and the enterprise
solution that goes along withthat.
But going down to rail cars, wealso see large volume liquid
style cars, rail cars.
We also see large volume liquidstyle cars.
And you know, if you ever wantto, if you have young children
and you want to play a fun gameat a railway crossing, just
(50:31):
Google the placards as they goby and you'd be very surprised
what's in some of those cars asthey go along.
And once you really start tounderstand, okay, what's in
those cars, you start to gaineven more appreciation of who's
loading those cars, how is thathappening, and so on.
Our roadmap, on our developmentroadmap for this year and into
next, is to solve these samequestions and these same
(50:52):
challenges in the liquid carindustry, because you have
everything from peroxides toacids, to oils, to a variety of
different additives that arecompeting on the rail lines for
space and also have a verystrong export market but present
a whole different set ofchallenges.
They may be loaded hot, theymay be gaseous state, they may
(51:16):
require certain safetyprecautions.
And you know it was quiteunfortunate.
It was a little over a year ago.
I got called into a meetingwith a large shipper producer
that ships liquid product andthey asked if we had a
technology developed and I saidwe're working on it for liquids
and I said I'm sensing someurgency.
And they shared, they said wewish we had one yesterday.
(51:38):
You know they didn't get intowhat happened but you could tell
by the tone of the conversationthat it wasn't good right.
So there's a need there.
The fall arrest, all thesethings are the same but the
attributes are a little bitdifferent and there is some
actual barriers.
So that's definitely on ourtechnology development side.
Outside of the rail car andparticularly into the ag
(52:00):
industry, we're also developingand working on a new technology
for automated truck sampling.
So the purpose for theautomated truck sampling is a
number of things.
One, to be able to do it in theabsence of people present to
run those samples, offering thatvariability of sample while
(52:20):
maintaining quality.
So you know the randomness ofhow the samples is grabbed from
the incoming truck.
The second piece of that is itneeds to be coupled with the
grain grading aspects of theoperation, and really it's in
pursuit of what Dale hadmentioned earlier.
Is that how can we get theseagricultural facilities turned
(52:46):
into 24-hour operations wherethey could be receiving at the
beck and call of the producerand can be shipping at the beck
and call of the rail line or theshipping facility at port?
If we could get to that levelwhere you can push product
through as quickly as possiblewell, that helps every receiver
shipper operate at their optimumefficiency and while having a
(53:09):
strong focus on safety andkeeping people out of harm's way
.
Jim Lenz (53:13):
That's a great examination of how this is a
game changer, not just for thegrain industry.
Rail car loading system Now youmentioned looking at
technologies for samplingAmazing.
Let's discuss digitalization,advancement of brain handling
operations.
Brooke Blessington, Innova (53:31):
Yeah , I mean I think there could be,
you know, two components herethat I think would be important
to hit on, and one is just kindof circling back to that
sustainability aspect that wetalked about earlier.
You know, telling the story ofthe product the end user is
really like in ourhyper-connected global world,
the end user is really, reallyinterested in not only you know
the macro of what they're eating, but like who created it, where
(53:53):
did it come from?
What's the story of all of thatand I think that's an important
component that Rayhawk and thistechnology can help answer on
the rail car side of things.
That's definitely a trend thatwe're seeing and paying
attention to at Landis and atLandworks as well is how do you
help tell the story of how thatfood was produced?
You know, all the way from, youknow, the people who own the
(54:14):
land to the people who tend tothe land, all the way to the end
consumer.
You know that piece of thestorytelling is extremely
important in today's world andthe way that we're all such a
global community and the otherpart of it, jim, I would say,
would just be the trajectory ofdigitalizing everything that's
(54:35):
happening in agriculture, atLandis.
We are really interested andwe've got a couple of new types
of innovative solutions that arecoming out.
At LANDWERX we have theTesseract synthesis and at
Landus we just launched Conduit,which is a different type of
platform and a different company, and Dale I hope that you know
a little bit more about it thanI do but that's really something
that we see changing.
(54:55):
The face of agriculture isreally those two pieces and I
think that they do go hand inhand.
They're kind of woven togetherwhere you've got to have the
digital components, because noone person can put all those
pieces together, and it doestake automation and it does take
, you know, a perspective shiftof how do you capture that
information, how do you layer ittogether so that you can make
sense of it, so that the enduser sees the value of what was
(55:18):
produced.
Dale Vinsand, Director Of (55:19):
Dale , we do have a website for
conduitag.
Conduit is going to be a uniqueplatform that is going to offer
a different way to purchaseinputs for our farmer owners as
well as not just our owners butother farmers throughout the
United States.
In addition to that, it's gotsome financing options and stuff
(55:40):
available to it through Brookeand her team helping develop
Conduit.
Anybody interested in it wouldneed to create an email account
with us to be able to get moreinformation on that.
Jim Lenz (55:53):
All right, before we conclude, let's provide a quick
summary.
Let's do that for each of you.
I will start that with Brookereal overview statement, dale
same thing summary statement,and then Tom the inspiration
(56:14):
came from you We'll have somefinal concluding, summarizing
statements, and then again,president and CEO of Rayhawk
Technologies, tom as well.
All right, let's start withBrooke.
Brooke Blessington, Innovat (56:29):
Hey , thank you so much.
You know at LANDWERX we're justreally thrilled to engage in
all different types ofinnovation and especially to be
introduced to a company likeRayhawk.
At Landis and at LANDWERX we'rereally interested in finding
those change makers foragriculture and opening up doors
for the innovation that needsto occur in our sector.
Couldn't be more excited to bepart of the story and to figure
(56:52):
out ways to collaborate withRayhawk and companies like them
in the future.
Dale Vinsand, Director O (56:56):
Brooke did a really nice job of
wrapping it up from the landaside and I'll probably just tie
it in a little bit with Jeepsand the exchanges as well.
Here have innovative companiescome to that exchange each year.
Keep the excitement up,Overcome the exchange.
It's great to go and see oldfriends that you have met over
the years and stuff like thatthat you've done with projects,
(57:17):
but it's always refreshing justto see a new face with a new
technology that keeps movingeverything forward, not just for
Landus but for everybody that'sinvolved in the agricultural
sector.
That's terrific.
Thank you, Dale.
Ray Boehm, Inspiration Beh (57:31):
Well , thank you for giving me an
opportunity to say a few things.
It's great to see the youngpeople with all this technology.
It's something else.
Jim Lenz (57:44):
Thank you something else, thank you, and you've
taken it so far, ray.
You were the inspiration.
It is so incredibly special tohave you on the Whole Grain
Podcast, because people want toknow where this came from.
This wasn't a thought yesterday.
It wasn't a thought a year ortwo ago.
This really evolved from yourpersonal experience and that is
(58:04):
really special.
It's important to know thestory behind a product or
service.
People want to invest in it andyou've all provided a great
resource.
So, tom, if you could,conclusionary statements here,
yeah, you bet.
First of all.
Tom Boehm, President of Ra (58:19):
It's just truly amazing as we go
along and have theseopportunities to do a podcast
and work with companies likeLandis and Landworks, to take
something that starts off as adream and a vision and an idea
and see it grow into atechnology and there's risk all
along we talked about that alongthe way but as it's growing.
(58:39):
But then when you start to meetgreat people and you start to
see that they see the potentialand that they see the, the
strategy, the advantage and theefficiency and and how, what it
means to their business, itstarts to almost make its own
heat and create fire.
Right, and and it's every timewe have a conversation like this
and and or we you know weattend Jeeps exchange down
(59:01):
Kansas city and see theexcitement that the topic raised
down there it's just it's.
And see the excitement that thetopic raised down there.
It's inspiring, it just keepsus going and we're just really
pleased to be able to bring thisto the market and help people
solve problems, to honestlyevolve as an industry and make
sure people get home safe and wecan honestly make sure that
(59:25):
North America as a whole staysin its rightful place as a
number one in the global supplychain of the agriculture mining
sectors.
That's really what we're tryingto do, right.
Jim Lenz (59:35):
Thank you.
I just want to say those wholegrain podcast listeners who are
joining us today, this impactsyou, this impacts your
organization, this impacts theindustry.
I think that one of the bestthings you could do, whole grain
podcast listeners, right now,is to share this episode with
your colleagues, share thisepisode with your team, your
(59:57):
organization.
It's easy to do.
It really gives a showcase ofagain the story, the meaning
behind it, the technology andhow it can support incredible
organizations like LANDWERX andLandus, but I think, also an
action from this, and we'llinclude this in the show notes
for this episode.
The visual of this working is amust, and so I'm going to ask
(01:00:21):
you, tom, how can listenersright now, after this episode,
how can they see this in action?
Where do they go, how do theyconnect with you, how do they
connect with their team, how dothey connect through the video
and other things?
And we'll include again this inthe show notes.
Tom Boehm, President of Ray (01:00:37):
You bet the best place is to drive
the traffic to our website atwwwrayhawkca.
But you know, with thewonderful search engines we have
, if you Google or searchRayhawk, you'll find us on
Instagram, you'll find us onLinkedIn, you'll find us on your
(01:00:57):
website.
There's YouTube.
There's a tremendous amount ofdocumentation out there.
Unfortunately, we do have someindustrial installations
operating right now, but youwon't see a lot of documents out
there that are publiclyavailable simply because of the
legalities around sharingcustomer information.
But we've got a lot of greatinformation out there.
Wonderful to watch Great musicin the background.
(01:01:20):
It's fantastic.
Jim Lenz (01:01:22):
Excellent, excellent, excellent.
So again, thank you so much.
I appreciate you all joining us.
I want to thank you, tom andRay from Rayhawk Technologies,
for making this episode possibleand for teaching others and
informing others about thisreally groundbreaking technology
to improving safety, improvingefficiency, and it really can be
(01:01:43):
implemented in both large andsmall operations with railways.
So thank you LANDWERX, thankyou Brooke BLESSINGTON for
joining us and thank you, DaleVinsand from Landus for your
great insights and supportingthis message.
I really appreciate that.
I just want to encouragelisteners to explore more about
Rayhawk Technologies Inc andtheir transformative solutions
(01:02:07):
that are out there Again.
Check out or info rayhawkca.
out more information.
We'll include those links inthe show . .
We'll include the links toLandus and LANDWERX.
Well, thank you all on behalfof the entire GEAPS
organization, we thank you forbeing part of this episode
(01:02:27):
fantastic, thank you, thank you.
Whole Grain Podcast listeners,thank you for your participation
in the show.
Hey, don't forget to share thisimportant episode with your
network.
You can catch up on all WholeGrain Podcast episode at www.
GEAPS.
COM/WHOLEGRAIN .
You can also catch up on theshow by connecting with your
favorite podcast app.
(01:02:48):
Just do a search for a wholegrain, hit the subscribe button.
That way, all episodes will bedownloaded to your device as
soon as they are released.
Plus, you can check up on pastepisodes as well.
The whole grain show is aproduction of GEAPS, the Grain
Elevator and Processing Society.
The Grain Elevator andProcessing Society is the
largest organization dedicatedto advancing the grain handling
(01:03:09):
and processing industry.
Be sure to check out www.
geaps.
com.
That's G-E-A-P-S dot com.
The Whole Grain Podcast offersa terrific opportunity to
spotlight your businessorganization.
Want to sponsor an episode andbe a featured guest?
Please reach out to me, JimLenz, director of Global
Training and Education at GEAPSand host and producer of the my
(01:03:32):
email is , .
We look forward to connectingwith you.
We thank Rayhawk TechnologiesIncorporated for sponsoring this
episode.
Their message was an importantone and can really revolutionize
the industry.
Have yourself a great day andthanks for listening to Whole
(01:03:54):
Grain.
Stay tuned for an insightful conversation that
promises to shed light on thefuture of autonomous rail car
loading solutions.
Let's get started.
My name is Jim Lenz, your hostand producer of the show, and
(00:23):
director of global training andeducation at GEAPS, where the
mission of the Grain Elevatorand Processing Society is to
champion, connect and serve theglobal grain industry and our
members At GEAPS.
We work to be the globalcommunity and thought leader for
the grain industry, which feedsand fuels the world.
Thanks for listening today andfor joining the network of
(00:49):
thousands of other grainhandling and processing
professionals across the globetaking strategic steps to grow
professionally.
The Whole Grain Show will giveyou the competitive advantage to
win at work so you can makemore of an impact.
Joining us today are twodistinguished guests from
Rayhawk Technologies Inc.
A trailblazer in thisgroundbreaking technology.
We are thrilled to have TomBoehm, president of Rayhawk,
along with his father, Ray Boehm, the inspiration behind the
brand.
They'll be sharing how theircutting-edge technology is
(01:10):
reshaping the railway loadoutindustry.
Also, we are pleased to welcomeBrooke Blessington from
LANDWERX and Dale Vinsand fromLandus.
They'll provide valuableinsights into the industry
challenges and how Rayhawksolutions are addressing these
issues head-on.
We'll examine the key featuresof Rayhawk's innovative
autonomous rail car loadingsystem.
(01:32):
So get ready to learn howRayhawk Technologies is
transforming the grain handlingindustry with innovative
solutions that not only enhanceproductivity but also ensure
safety and reliability.
(01:52):
All right, today we have twospecial guests from Rayhawk
Technologies Inc.
A trailblazer in autonomousrail car loading solutions.
Joining us is Tom Boehm,president of Rayhawk, and Ray
Boehm, the inspiration behindthe brand, who will shed light
on how their innovativetechnology is reshaping the
railway loadout industry.
(02:13):
Also joining us are BrookeBlessington from Landworks and
Dale Vincent from Landis tohighlight the industry
challenges in this sector.
Thank you all for joining us.
Appreciate it.
It's going to be an excitingepisode.
Let's start off really broadand kind of narrow this down.
Let's hear from Tom Bain andhis father, ray.
(02:33):
Could you start help our WholeGrain Podcast listeners with a
sort of setup of the history,the story of how Rayhawk came to
be Well.
Tom Boehm, President of Ray (02:43):
The story goes back a few years now
.
In fact, it goes all the wayback to late 2019, when a client
in the industry had approachedus with an idea of automating
real car opening and closingprocesses in the efforts to
improve safety in theirindustrial setting.
At that time, there was notechnology available, but there
was hardware and computeradvancement.
(03:04):
At that time, there was notechnology available, but there
was hardware and computeradvancement.
And we are blessed with a veryintelligent group of engineers
and computer science people, andwe started passing the idea
around the table and saying isthis possible?
Could we do it?
Would we do it?
And after some time we startedgetting some traction on ways it
(03:24):
could be done, mechanicalattributes of it, the
complexities of it and so on.
In the meantime, we were doing afair amount of market research.
We were reaching out to a numberof clients in both the mining
and the agriculture industry toensure that there was a strong
need, that this was indeed achallenge in the industry, and I
would say that over the courseof a number of months and
(03:45):
upwards of close to a year, bothanswers kind of came together,
the technology started to takeshape and we really started to
gain a solid understanding ofthe importance of this
technology and what it couldmean to the safety and
efficiency and the operations oflarge-scale facilities in both
agriculture and mining.
(04:06):
And safety is no joke.
We all take it very, veryseriously and, regardless of the
industry vertical, everybody'sfacing the same challenges of
being able to do more with thepeople that they have and meet
the global demands on theirproducts.
So during that market researchtime, unbeknownst to my father,
(04:26):
he was being questionedrepeatedly about the safety
implications, as he had ahistory of working in the mining
and loading rail cars, andmaybe I'll pass it over to Dad
here to explain what some ofthose might have been Well back
in the day.
Ray Boehm, Inspiration Behind (04:42):
A lot of things have changed up
nowadays.
Like back when I startedloading cars, there was
virtually no safety.
You were on your own up there,there was no safety belt, there
was no glasses, there wasnothing, just you and the rail
car, the rail car.
(05:03):
But as the safety got better,you got the glasses and you had
earplugs and everything justpicked up in the safety lines,
and so it came a long way, butyou still have to open them car
lids.
Somehow Somebody has to openthose car lids and it's just
(05:24):
that simple.
And it's just that simple andit's just great to see the
technology that they got and thesafety that is going to be
provided by that opening system.
Like it's huge, it's reallysomething.
Jim Lenz (05:48):
So, Ray, you're the inspiration behind this.
If you don't mind, could youadd a little bit more?
Your history, your profession.
Ray Boehm, Inspiration Behin (05:51):
It went way back to 1968 when the
mine first opened, and at thattime it was mostly bags, believe
it or not.
We loaded bags into boxcars andthat didn't pan out because the
nails were.
You know, grain boxcars.
And that didn't pan out becausethe nails were.
You know grain boxcars are likethe wood is all worn, the nails
are sticking out, and so theykind of got away from that and
(06:13):
then they started going to bulk.
That's where the rail caropener lids opening from the top
began and it just progressed astime went on, like everything
else.
The safety got better, theloading got faster, and it's
just the way it is.
And I spent 11 years in onemine loading rail cars.
(06:36):
So through those years there'sdifferent things that went on.
You know it's just a normalprocedure on, you know it's just
a normal procedure.
Jim Lenz (06:45):
Let's dive into Rayhawk Technologies' mission in
revolutionizing railway loadoutoperations.
Tom Boehm, President of Ra (06:51):
It's really straightforward.
You know it's our goal toimprove safety and efficiency
through autonomous loadingsolutions, if we can remove the.
You know there's lots to besaid around safety and I think
Dad said it well that over timeyou take the technologies that
you have and you adopt them tobe able to improve the working
conditions for people, and thatincluded things like the fall of
(07:13):
the belt just a simple beltthat then progressed to a fall
arrest harness as we see ittoday is a five-point harness
and then to a retractablelanyard and then to a cable
track, if you will, that peoplecould walk up and down rail cars
and have a little bit moremobility.
But these are all just smallsteps towards protecting around
(07:35):
the larger risk, and the largerrisk is that somebody's still
working at heights, somebodycould still fall off the rail
car or fall into the rail car.
You're still working ininclement weather and various
conditions it could be dust,could be heat, could be extreme
cold and you're still dealingwith the challenges of the job,
which is it's kind ofbackbreaking work.
I think, dad, you had said itbest in a prior discussion that
(07:57):
you know when you look over a12-hour shift and the length of
a unit train and how many carsyou fill during that shift.
You're bending over, touchingyour toes approximately 1,500
times per shift, and you knowwhen you think, okay, that's
(08:17):
fine, it's not fine for me, butit's fine for others.
Then you add in the fact thatyou actually have to do some
physical exertion while you'rebent over, whether that be
operating a latch or reefing ona lid, and then you start to
believe and understand okay, wehave lower back injuries, we
have twisted ankles, we haveskinned knees, we have
absenteeism from work, we haveinsurance claims, and it just
goes on and on and on.
(08:39):
And even to the later technologythat large-scale producers and
shippers have adopted, and thatis continuous loading of a loop
track system where the trainnever stops.
So all these other precursorsthat I just described were on
stationary.
Well, now we're actually uppingthe game.
We're making the real car movewhile we're doing all this, and
(09:00):
people are required to transferfrom one car to the next without
getting off the cars.
And you know, if you have somebackground in industry, you
start to put this together inyour mind and say, holy smokes.
So the car is moving, the personis stationary while they're
doing the job, then the lanyardis moving.
There's just so many variables.
(09:21):
Fortunately, we've got somereally heads up people that are
doing this work.
That's got a lot to do withtheir safety awareness, but the
results are, or the future is,that we're increasing production
, we're increasing speed, we'reincreasing all these things.
We're just we're racing towards.
The risks are getting higher,even though we're putting all
(09:44):
the technology we can.
So why don't we deal with theproblem?
Why don't we just take theperson off the rail car?
Yeah, just take them out ofharm's way.
Jim Lenz (09:53):
You just described obviously a very dynamic work
environment.
So many factors that go intothis.
Let's make it easier, safer,efficient and improve the
process to load and unload Ray.
How do you think Ray Hawk isgoing to change the industry?
Ray Boehm, Inspiration Beh (10:09):
Well , there's more than just the
danger of being up there, likeone example that I found, which
I didn't mention in the lastinterview in a cold day, when
you get out there at 8 in themorning and they have their
track mobiles plugged in,they're inside and everything,
and when you fire up a colddiesel motor, the inside of that
(10:33):
building is just full of dieselsmoke and you're breathing that
in and there's no avoiding it,because it's just part of the
thing.
That's just one of manyadvantages of not being up there
.
You know somebody has to openthem lids, but if you can do it
(10:54):
without having the people upthere, that's fantastic.
Tom Boehm, President of Ray (10:59):
You know, one way we had talked
about it in the past is that youknow, once upon a time safety
glasses weren't a thing either.
You know, they just weren't inexistence and they were invented
and they were duplicated.
And now they're so widespreadthat you know, to not wear
safety glasses in the workplacewould be almost criminal.
You know, in a lot of waysright, it's just a norm, it's
(11:22):
not even an exception.
It's a norm, it's not even anexception.
And when you look at what theRayhawk technology means to the
safety around loading rail cars,we're just in that early
adoption and commercializationphase.
But in reality, if you lookyears down the road, the
interest from government, frominsurance companies, from
(11:44):
large-scale industrial users isso strong that it's not hard to
see that, if you were to lookfive to eight years down the
road, that it's going to becommonplace everywhere.
Jim Lenz (11:50):
Yeah, revolutionary.
It sounds like the mind shift Ithink that is going to take
shape over these next couple ofyears is just, I think, going to
be amazing.
So you both kind of discussedthe motivation behind developing
autonomous rail car loadingsolutions to address industry
challenges in the grain industry, in the mining industry and
other industries.
So, adding to that sentiment,that statement, explain again
(12:15):
how the technology fixes thoseindustry gaps and saves lives.
Tom Boehm, President of Ra (12:20):
Well , quite simply, it just removes
the human capital on a farm'sway.
It's as simple as that.
Without having to put our humancapital on top of the rail cars
, we can still perform thefunction, which is critical.
I mean, we're in a massivecontinent that has the ability
to produce and export so manygoods around the world that
(12:42):
hauling these goods to ports todo to circulate them around the
world is critical.
It is the, I mean it'sabsolutely critical to our, to
our operations.
Without that we can't produce.
We would only produce what wecan consume locally and
therefore our business is isunderpinned by the ability to
not only provide that functionbut to do it safely.
(13:05):
If we can't do it safely and ifwe can't do it efficiently, well
then all the other things, allthe other pressures of business
come to play, from negativepublicity to a lack of favor,
perhaps from our shareholders,our investors, to we're just not
holding our position as a worldclass and when I say the
collective, the royal, we I'm onbehalf of the customer base,
(13:27):
that it's everyone's goal to beseen as a grade, a investment,
top, world class producingcompany that instills confidence
in not just the investor butthe customer themselves.
Everybody wants to be a part ofthat story, knowing that
they're buying from asustainable company that offers
low risk and a steady supplychain, and that's more than just
(13:50):
a brand on a bag that's got todo with.
Are you hurting people?
Are you a risky operator?
Are you always shut downbecause things happen?
All these things come into thepicture, right.
Jim Lenz (14:02):
Yeah, you provided a really good capsule of the
dynamic environment.
All right, so, tom and Ray,you've definitely shared
insights into Ray Hawk's journeyand your commitment to safety,
efficiency and reliability.
It's good to know thebackground, but now let's
provide listeners what this isall about.
We want to have you provide anunderstanding of autonomous rail
(14:24):
car loading solutions, so, ifyou don't mind, let's go ahead
and explore the key features andtechnologies utilized by
Rayhawk's autonomous rail carloading system.
Let's start with opening gantry.
Tom Boehm, President of Ray (14:38):
The opening gantry is replicated
with the closing gantry.
It is the same architecture,the same structure and in fact,
depending on the function ifwe're talking about opening and
closing lids we've built anambidextrous tool that can be
utilized for both.
Now, indeed, it utilizesdifferent sections of the
computer code and it usesdifferent steps and processes,
(15:01):
but the architecture as a whole,the mechanical structure, is
very much the same.
So just to talk a little bitabout the opening side, this
technology uses three differentcameras on it and as the rail
car as if you can imagine, Iguess for the listeners to
describe this system it looks alot like an overhead gantry
(15:21):
crane that you might see in theindustry, where you have two
long rails suspended off theground of a certain height and
then you have a bridge that goesacross that with a trolley that
allows the crane to movelongitudinally along the long
rails and then across the shortrails.
So we've adopted some of thosesimilar engineering principles
(15:44):
and reapplied them in a uniqueway and that is to be controlled
completely by a computer whichis instructed by the vision
recognition system.
Now there's other littleoverlaying technologies in there
, but if you can envision as arail car comes into the
operating window of the overallgantry structure, then the
cameras can identify that it isa rail car.
(16:05):
It can identify the orientation,the location, the height, the
width, everything about the railcar, and in particular focus in
on the latches and on the lidpositions so it knows is the lid
closed or are the latchesclosed?
Is the lid open or are thelatches open?
Is it coming in with the hingeson the north side or the south
side, or the east or west, andso on?
(16:25):
And based on those orientationsand based on the recognition
system, the cameras thatidentify hey, that looks like a
latch 99, certain of it, it'llgo down and it'll now start to
execute a specific set ofactions to be able to open the
locking mechanisms and open thelatches.
(16:46):
Now, it's not just one latch,there may be multiple latches.
So the computer system needs tobe intelligent enough to know
what kind of rail car is this.
Does it have three lids withsix latches?
Does it have five lids on it?
Does there overlapping lids?
These types of unique aspectsthat are critical, you know, so
they can make the rightoperations to open rail car.
Jim Lenz (17:10):
Excellent, Great overview.
So that was of the openinggantry and you shared.
The closing gantries are verysimilar to that.
What about the air knifeenterprise solution?
Can you describe that?
Tom Boehm, President of RayH (17:24):
We live in such a large continent,
we can have all kinds of things.
We can have snow, we can haveice, we can have dust, we can
have lots of different thingshappening.
So often rail cars may come intothe operating window and they
may be covered with 6 inches to12 inches of snow, or maybe more
(17:46):
if they're sitting stationaryfor some time.
And we'll need, in order for thecameras to be able to recognize
where the lids and latches andorientations, there's going to
be a requirement to move theproduct of snow or other debris
off the top of the rail car.
So what we've done is we'vedeveloped a method of utilizing
a combination of a plowingsystem to reduce the bulk to a
(18:07):
brooming system to help agitateand get rid of, maybe, the stuff
that's more frozen orcrystallized, and, lastly, a
blower to help clean the snow orthe other debris from between
the walking rails and the lidedges and so on, to get it as
clean as possible.
Now, interestingly enough,we've also been asked to utilize
(18:29):
that same technology on theoutgoing side, after the system
is closed, and the predominantreason there is that in the
event that a rail car isoverfilled and there's a little
bit of spillage on the side.
It's important to make surethose rail cars leave clean, so
we want to get rid of any kindof product that might be
overfilled and off from theperimeters to make sure that the
(18:51):
rail car leaves the facility asclean as possible.
Jim Lenz (18:55):
Wow, that's really exciting.
Of course, I'd like to doresearch before I meet with
folks I interviewed for thewhole grain show.
I was invested in that.
I wanted to see this in action.
I did, and when I read that youknow cause there can be a lot
of snow on top of this by thetime it gets there, I'm like
what is?
What are they going to do?
(19:16):
You've answered that solutionand now I just heard that
there's a blower that can dothat.
I'm like my mind was alreadyblown.
My mind is like kaboom.
That's just really impressive.
And you've thought about theproblems, realities of what can
(19:37):
happen as they come in.
So now let's talk about how itaffects production efficiency.
Tom Boehm, President of Ra (19:44):
Well , yes, let's do that, but I
don't want to miss the secondpart of your first question.
That was on the enterprisesolution.
Yes, and the reason that willconnect together with the blower
assembly and so on and into theoperating efficiency is that
the enterprise solution allowsus to capture so much
information on this rail carbeing filled that it could be
(20:08):
very valuable to the producer orto the shipper.
Now, just as we had mentionedthat the rail car is expected to
be clean when it leaves thefacility, what about pictures?
What about recorded informationthat is specific to the seals
that may be applied to the railcar or specific to the actual
rail car itself?
You know, often when we talk alot about what we know in the
(20:33):
industry is a transfer of care,custody and control no different
than when a farmer or aproducer ships their product to
a terminal or to a facility.
They transfer that producteither under a contract or some
commercial terms, but ultimatelythey're transferring the care,
custody and control of that tothen be loaded on a train, which
then goes to a port facility,on a ship and perhaps to another
(20:55):
country.
It's very important to havethat information to say, you
know what, when we received thatmaterial from the farmer, from
the producer.
It was a certain grade, acertain quality and therefore
we've got good record of that.
There's technology for that Now, when it gets loaded into the
rail car, having the ability toprove that the rail car was
(21:16):
clean, that the rail car wasproperly filled, that the
product quality was there andwas properly secured until it
gets to the port facility, thenit transfers again.
All this information ispossible to package together
with our cavity inspectiontechnology, with our seal
application or removaltechnology to record the seal
(21:37):
numbers, our car recordinginformation, and can be packaged
with a logistics shippingdocument to basically be part of
that information trail fromfarm to table, if you will.
And so that's super important.
Now I'll jump over to your otherquestion about efficiency.
If you know, often rail carswill be delivered.
(21:59):
Um, you know, we have somewonderful rail companies that
ship the product down the rail.
That's their logistics teamthat has to maximize those rail
utilization and therefore, whenyou get a load, when you get a
train, a unit train to fill,sometimes it shows up exactly on
schedule and sometimes it maybedoesn't just because of other
complications, and often whatyou will find is that we know a
(22:21):
unit train is coming, but wedon't know exactly when.
Sometimes it shows up a littlelate, sometimes it shows up a
little early.
If it shows up a little early,often you know producers or
producers sorry shippers willhave to scramble to get their
loading team ready to go to getworking on this.
If it happens to be over aweekend, sometimes that means
calling the crew in to get thework done.
(22:42):
What this does is that you'realways giving a certain amount
of time to get the job done andif you don't have the people
ready waiting to do that whichmay not be the most efficient
business model as it is but ifyou don't have those people
ready and waiting now, yourclock is ticking.
And if you don't release thosecars on schedule, then there's
(23:03):
other demurrage charges and railfines and so on from the actual
transport carrier, from ourrail lines.
So often what we see is we seea compressing timeline come into
play that is forcing shippersto be able to load faster and
more efficiently, you know, sothat they can meet the schedule.
So it is a good example.
Sometimes you'll get a railcars dropped off with an eight
hour window to get the job done,but by the time you get
(23:26):
everybody there, you've only gotsix hours left.
How important is the speed ofloading now?
And, as we had talked aboutearlier, the faster we load, the
higher the probability there isfor error.
And the severity of errors whenyou're working around the rail
industry is not fantastic, right, you're dealing with big
equipment that doesn't stopeasily.
You know mistakes are not veryforgiving, right.
(23:48):
So with the Rayhawk technologywe can actually help meet those
expectations.
We can help start voting soonerbecause you're not waiting on
people to arrive at the worksite.
We can have more consistentoperation where, if nobody has a
hurt back or an injury or evenhas to put under fall arrest
(24:09):
harness, we can start votingright away and help the shipper
meet their deadlines, meet theirtimetables, while deploying
human capital to other, perhapsmore meaningful tasks like grain
cleaning or other aspects ofthe operation that don't require
them to be working at heights.
So efficiency is a big part ofthat and through our research we
(24:30):
see people racing towardswanting to load a standard rail
car in under three minutes.
That's fast, and if you were toever watch somebody working on
top of a rail car, for them towork at that speed continuously,
one after the other, especiallyon a loop track system where
the train is not stopping.
That's a very demanding job.
Jim Lenz (24:53):
Great clarity.
You're providing incredibleunderstanding of your solution.
Let's jump to weather rating.
Can you speak on that?
Tom Boehm, President of R (25:03):
We're a Canadian company and often we
take our jokes around the worldas far as the extreme climate
conditions we get.
In reality it's a beautifulcountry up here but we do get
some cold weather for sure andhonestly we get some extreme
heat.
To quote in Celsius, we can beminus 40 degrees centigrade,
(25:26):
which is darn cold, in thedepths of winter and we can be
in excess of plus 40 degreescentigrade in the summer depths
of winter and we can be inexcess of plus 40 degrees
centigrade in the summer.
Both can have adverse effects,especially on the mechanical and
structural components and onthe computer side.
So our goal, through the designof Rayhawk, has been
mechanically simple and computercomplex.
(25:46):
I referenced earlier that ourdesign is a close cousin, if you
will, to a standard gantrystyle crane and for those that
are familiar with those cranesthey can recognize that that
technology has been in use fordecades.
That is, it's a proventechnology.
It's got great reliability,data behind the mechanical
aspects of it and as we've beenspecific to select certain
(26:11):
computer hardware, we've beenvery cognizant about what will
work at these extremetemperatures.
So we have a minus 40 to plus40 temperature rating on our
equipment and you know, honestly, we feel quite confident it can
operate with outside of thosewindows.
But to be honest with you, whenyou're shopping nobody seems to
publish ratings beyond thosewindows.
(26:32):
So we're kind of bound by themanufacturer to a certain point.
Jim Lenz (26:37):
Now, both of you touched on insurance premiums.
There is a clear link betweenyour solution at Rayhawk
Technologies autonomous rail carloading systems and its
connection with reduction andinsurance premiums.
So if you could go in a littlemore detail with that, that'd be
(26:57):
great.
Tom Boehm, President of Ray (26:59):
You bet and you know there's
certain things that we knowpre-Rayhawk if you will and
there's certain things thatwe're learning even to this day.
I'll maybe start with kind ofthe workers' compensation,
employee injury type of approach, and I'm sure we all appreciate
that.
You know we want everybody tocome to work safely and go home
safely, but we've all been doingthis long enough to know that
(27:22):
lower back injuries, twistedknees, these types of things
happen in the workplace andthere's a cost to that.
You know there's an efficiencycost to operations that now that
worker may be missing for aperiod of time and maybe you
have to hire temporary labor orshift your resources around to
meet your operational goals.
(27:43):
But behind the scenes, yourunderwriters that are insuring
these employee compensationpackages look at your injury
prevention practices and theysay, well, how many claims a
year do you have and the moreclaims you have the at your
injury prevention practices andthey say, well, how many claims
a year do you have, and the moreclaims you have, the higher
your insurance premiums, yourmultiplier rates go for the
hours that are worked on the jobsite and this is something that
(28:06):
a lot of people don't often paytoo close attention to because
generally it hits more of acorporate office level or higher
and not necessarily at the sitespecific.
But insurance premiums foremployee coverage is not cheap
insurance.
This could be tens of thousandsto hundreds of thousands of
dollars in annual premiums ifyou happen to have more injuries
(28:30):
than others, right?
So that's a big part of it.
Since Rayhawk's been getting outthere, particularly after we
kind of showcased and gotlaunched at the Jeeps in Kansas
City at GEAPS Exchange, we'vebeen fortunate to have some
conversation with some very,very large corporate
underwriters, people that areinsuring the agriculture
(28:50):
industry and the miningindustries, and they're asking a
lot of questions.
They're asking a lot ofquestions around how this can
reduce risk, how this can reduce, you know, any kind of employee
injuries or business risk tothese facilities.
And it's been a greatconversation, especially to hear
the feedback from their side tosay, you know, they nod their
head and they're like you knowwhat, if people are looking for
(29:13):
ways to reduce their operationalpremiums towards lost
production insurance, unplannedoutages, where are the critical
points of their operation?
This is great tech, this is thetech they can adopt to help
lower their business risk.
And being the president ofRayok Technologies and having
the opportunity to be involvedin some other companies, I know
(29:34):
firsthand what it means tomanage business risk.
If you can reduce your businessrisk, everywhere, from your
financial institutions to yourinsurance underwriters,
everybody looks at you morefavorably.
You're just a better investmenton everybody's part.
Jim Lenz (29:50):
Again, great clarity, really important points to come
across, I think, for ourlisteners to take into context
of this solution.
So that kind of leads to thenext part of the conversation.
We're going to bring in ourguests here from Landus and
LANDWERX.
So very excited to have BrookeBlessington from LANDWERX and
(30:13):
Dale Vinsand from Landis.
Don't want to make anyassumptions.
We have listeners from 72different countries have
listened to this whole greenpodcast.
As a result, if we could haveBrooke Blessington here, step
into this conversation, tell usabout LANDWERX and Dale Vinson
tell us about Land, highlight alittle bit about what you do,
(30:36):
what the organizations do, I'dappreciate that and we'll kind
of link that then to thisconversation here that we've had
so far.
Brooke Blessington, Innova (30:44):
Okay , Dale, do you want to start off
or do you want me to go?
Dale Vinsand, Director Of O (30:47):
You know, brooke, I'd let ladies go
first, but it makes a littlemore sense for me to lead off
here.
So my name is Dale Vinsand.
I'm the director of grainoperations at Landus Cooperative
.
We are a 60-plus location grainand agronomy cooperative
located mostly in the state ofIowa.
We do reach out to other statesnow with different versions of
(31:08):
that footprint 600-plusemployees.
Many of those are related toour day-to-day operations,
especially in loading rail cars.
We've got 14 differentfacilities that load rail cars.
Many of those are 110 shuttlecapable on class one railroads.
The majority of those are.
So our exposure to this is adaily item for us at Landus
(31:31):
Cooperative and it's somethingwe've been researching over the
past couple of years.
We've been very aggressive atupgrading our facilities to
allow them to be managed and runby fewer people as labor
becomes a shortage out in ruralAmerica.
That includes the actualmechanical facilities as well as
our computer operating itemssuch as our PLCs and our remote
(31:53):
operation capabilities and howwe support those as well.
And one thing that as a groupwe always recognize that we are
going to continue to strugglewith was how we are going to
handle that person being on topof the rail car.
Many people in our industry,including myself, always worried
about how we were going toreplace what your eyes and
(32:15):
thumbs can do of the human body,and I was very excited to be
Tom at this year's Jeepsexchange down in Kansas City.
I've been a member of GEAPS for19 years, getting ready to go
on to my 20th, and I'm alwaysexcited about the technology we
can bring back each time.
So I'll turn it over to you,Brooke, because I met you as you
joined our organization andthis is one of the technology we
(32:36):
can bring back each time.
So I'll turn it over to you,Brooke, because I met you as you
joined our organization andthis is one of the things we had
challenged LANDWERX with.
So go ahead, Brooke.
Brooke Blessington, Innova (32:42):
Well , thanks, Dale.
As Dale said, my name is Brookeand I serve as the director of
LANDWERX, so LANDWERX serves asthe innovation arm of Landus.
At Landus, we believe that foodsecurity is an important
component of national security.
We do everything that we can tosupport all of the owners and
operators and everyone alongthat food chain supply.
And at LANDWERX we're designedto put farmers at the center of
(33:05):
everything that we do and wedeliver those in-demand
solutions directly to theoperators themselves and we also
work to further that foodsecurity initiative that we have
.
And at Landus and at LANDWERX,we are consistently engaging
with startups and othercompanies that we think will be
changemakers in agriculture.
So I was absolutely delightedat our recent Innovation
(33:28):
Connector events that Dale madethe introduction between our
team and Rayhawk.
And at Landis and at Landworks,safety is ingrained in our
culture.
It's a part of everything thatwe do.
Like I said, we care abouteveryone all along that supply
chain, whether we're telling thestory of the way that our food
is produced, as Tom alluded toearlier, or making sure that our
employees and everyone alongthat supply chain is safe, from
(33:49):
the minute the plant is plannedfor, to harvest it and then all
the way to delivering to the enduser.
Jim Lenz (33:55):
Thank you Gail, thank you Brooke.
So, broadly speaking, every oneof us here in this call are
concerned about and play a rolein food security right, and then
we bring it down further.
We want people in a situationthat's as safe as possible.
So both of you just representyour organizations well
(34:16):
described it and you're alwayslooking at areas for improvement
and support and you're lookingfor solutions out there, and you
saw Rayhawk Technologies andhad conversations with them.
So let's go ahead and, if youdon't mind, brooke and Dale,
highlight the industry challengea little bit more.
(34:37):
Highlight how they areimpacting LANDWERX and Landus.
Dale Vinsand, Director Of (34:41):
Well , I'll start there from the
truly operational side of thebusiness.
Well, I'll start there from thetruly operational side of the
business.
Dale, within Landus, we havemultiple trains being loaded
throughout our company.
I think at one point we wellnot think.
I do know that we loaded ninetrains in 48 hours at one point
(35:02):
last year.
And when you're sharing laboracross different facilities,
that is, it's really taxing onour field employees to be able
to handle that amount of grainmoving at any given time.
So being able to startinvestigating with Tom and the
team at Rayhawk the ability toreduce our labor requirements
per train both has a financialincentive to it as well as
(35:23):
sharing our resources and makingour labor more efficient with
the skilled labor that we haveavailable to us, that would
probably be the biggestchallenge that we see from the
truly operational side of thebusiness.
Thank you, dale.
Ray Boehm, Inspiration B (35:36):
Brooke .
Brooke Blessington, Innova (35:37):
Yeah , at LANDWERX we really
specialize in collaboration, andso we see Rayhawk being part of
the solutions to the problemsthat we're seeing takes all
kinds, whether we're engagingwith other industry, academia
and really just weaving that alltogether to make meaningful
impacts in the community.
And so, knowing that we'reputting people in harm's way in
(35:57):
the transportation supply chain,there's a lot of work to be
done across our industry andacross the continent in those
areas, and so we at Landus andat LANDWERX we engage with a
number of different startups andwe closely monitor what these
companies are doing and look forfuture collaboration
opportunities so that we canwork together to bring the best
solutions for our farmers andfor all of our end users in
(36:19):
agriculture.
Jim Lenz (36:20):
Great points there and we're excited that you and
your organization is investingin new technologies out there
and it's great that you saw andexposed to Rayhawk technologies
through Dale and what he foundabout it at the recent GEAPS
Exchange.
So that's fantastic to get allparties together here.
Thank you both very much.
(36:41):
Let's touch again on ensuringsafety and reliability.
Let's touch again on ensuringsafety and reliability.
Let's highlight Rayhawk'scommitment to safety through
advanced safety precautions andfeatures.
Brooke Blessington, Innovati (36:55):
At LANDWERX, we're always looking
for different types ofinnovation.
So we look at innovation thatcould be incremental and
improving a product that'salready out there.
We look at adjacent innovation,where a different type of
technology is brought over intothe agricultural industry, or
sometimes technology that existswithin agriculture and
transferring that out.
And then there's other timesthat what we're really after is
that transformational innovation, and I know that Tom was
(37:17):
talking about all the solutionsthat they brought forth and, Jim
, I believe you called itrevolutionary, and I think that
that really speaks to the typeof innovation that we need and
the type of innovation thatreally will change the way that
agriculture goes to compete inthe days ahead.
So we really are excited tolook at the way that Rayhawk is
taking a different perspective,looking at safety and protecting
(37:38):
those who are out there,providing for all of us and
really transforming aninfrastructure that we all know
and use every single day formingan infrastructure that we all
know and use every single day.
Dale Vinsand, Director Of O (37:51):
Jim , in addition to that, I'd like
just to follow up when we'retalking about Ray Hawk and the
members of Tom's team over there.
I'm very impressed by Tom'steam's ability to solve a
complex problem, so the reasonthat I introduced Tom and his
team to Brooke and the team atLandworks was to engage on other
topics that we have comingforward.
Tom reached out and solvedsomething that many in the
(38:11):
industry hadn't tried working onyet, and I want that same
commitment to other problemsthat we have identified within
our business.
Jim Lenz (38:20):
Can you discuss how the system delineates autonomous
areas to prevent operation whenpersonnel are nearby and the
implementation of SIL-ratedemergency stops?
Tom Boehm, President of RayHa (38:32):
I could probably take that one
there.
So for sure you know, when we'redealing with autonomous
solutions, particularly whenyou're dealing with rail cars
and you're dealing with largegantry style structures like the
Rayhawk is there's opportunityfor injury if safety is not
followed.
So, as you can imagine, we wouldwant to make sure that kind of
(38:55):
human capital or employees arenot in the working area while
the Rayhawk system is engaged.
Therefore, it's very importantto have the best of the
accelerated safety equipmentproximity detection, light
curtains and so on in place toprevent any access or unplanned
(39:16):
entry into the working zone byany kind of workers that may be
in the area.
This is something that'scustomized site by site because
there's a lot of variability outthere in facilities and how
they load rail cars, how theyaccess rail cars Is it by a
(39:39):
gangway that drops down to therail car?
Is it by a working platform?
Alongside of our detailedengineering phase, and we work
closely with each client to makesure that the safety system
exceeds their safety policiesand procedures, and we take that
all the way through to operatortraining and a full
commissioning process to makesure that these systems are in
(40:00):
place and maintained in years tocome, that the systems are
checked regularly, so that everyday can be a safe day.
Jim Lenz (40:09):
Excellent, Tom.
I want to invite you toelaborate on predictive
maintenance modeling and itsrole in ensuring system
reliability and uptime, for sure.
Tom Boehm, President of RayH (40:20):
So , as I mentioned earlier that
we've borrowed a few bits andpieces of technology,
particularly on the mechanicalaspects for this creation, from
the overhead crane industry, andthere's a lot of history of
gantry-style crane operationsout there.
In a former life I actually hadthe opportunity to manage a
(40:43):
crane services company at onepoint in time, and as a part of
our business.
It was an arm of one of ourbusinesses and you know regular
maintenance of overhead cranesis often, more often than not,
focused around the wind chainsystems, the cable systems, the
hooks and the brakes and so on.
Indeed, the trolleys and theend trucks and things like that
(41:04):
are actually a very, verydurable part of the overhead
crane system and that's the partthat we're borrowing and
bringing into our technology.
Now we have a patented designthroughout North America for
this technology thatmechanically simple, computer
complex strategy to allow usersthe confidence to say you know,
(41:28):
if that beam happens to crack,there's a local guy that I know
can help fix that.
If there's a bearing goes on anend truck.
Well, there's a handful of craneservice companies in the area
that we know stock parts forthat particular bearing.
You know it's because weappreciate that uptime is
everything for that particularbearing, you know, is because we
(41:50):
appreciate that uptime iseverything With the computer
complex side.
It's very easy to deployover-the-wire type support and
solutions while also ensuringthat we have local partners that
can help if something needs tobe tested or a voltage needs to
be measured.
Or you know, we need sometechnical hands-on on the site
level and all the way back tothat measured, or you know we
need some technical hands-on onthe site level and all the way
back to that enterprise solution.
(42:11):
With the technology we'redeploying we can actually even
monitor the motor torques thatare running this equipment.
So if we start to see thatthere's a trend in motor torque
value that is changing over time, that we can relate that
against temperature, we canrelate that against seasonality,
we can relate that againstnumber of operations and by
(42:32):
trending that across a widerspectrum of a number of RIOC
installations we start to getsome predictive modeling that
can then give us some advancenotice, say, hey, you know what
things are, okay now, but maybenext year we should look at
replacing a bearing or makingsure you clean your rails or you
know various parts like that.
Jim Lenz (42:50):
Very, very thorough.
Thank you so much.
All right, now let's dive intohow things were set up in Ray's
day and how really not a wholelot has changed.
Some has changed, but not muchhas changed today.
Ray Boehm, Inspiration Behi (43:05):
Ray has changed, but not much has
changed today.
Right, I can't really commenton all the things that have
changed in the last 20 years,but before that it just I don't
know.
Like I said, we used to have tocatch samples with a take a
(43:25):
pail on top of the car and twoscoops out of each hopper.
We were on a three hopper car,which most commonly we were
loaded at that time we used tohave to also catch three samples
.
So you're on there again, andnow I'm sure they've got
automatic samplers.
Tom Boehm, President of RayH (43:42):
We all offer a little bit of
support there.
I think everybody agrees thatsome of the process equipment
has helped.
You know, as you mentioned, dad, about sampling.
Now there's the equipment thatis going to help with that and,
as Landis and Landworks knows,there's a lot of change in
process technology in thefilling equipment.
(44:03):
But the one thing that hasn'tchanged is the full arrest and
the worker on top of the railcar is still there.
And if we want to say what'schanged around that, we have
changed that environment becausewith all this advanced and
processed equipment I think,dale, you mentioned earlier PLCs
and automation and advancementwe're able to work faster than
(44:24):
we ever could.
The chute size itself is evenbigger right and the scaling
systems are quicker.
Everything gets sped up,everything's sped up and, as we
know, with speed things happenfaster, good or bad.
So if we still have that personon top of the rail car, they're
still in harm's way.
So if we still have that personon top of the road car, they're
(44:45):
still in harm's way.
Jim Lenz (44:47):
Now let's kind of lead back to Landis and
Landworks here with Dale andBrooke.
Can you highlight?
Dale Vinsand, Director Of O (44:57):
how the Rayhawk system would
mitigate those challenges.
I'll take that one, jim, just alittle bit.
So our relationship withRayhawk is just getting off to a
good, solid start here andwe're recording this in early
May, which is a heavy agronomyseason for us and really takes a
lot of our personnel to executethat here within our
organization for the farmers.
So as we come out of that,we've identified a team that's
(45:20):
going to start working with someof the information that Tom has
given us for our review of thisproduct and taking steps to
start the implementation.
There's a lot of things that wehave to think about and work
through with the different raillines on its implementation at
our facility.
But, getting down to it, ourorganization's goal is to really
(45:44):
work at starting to alleviatethat need for the person on top
of the rail car, just long term.
That is the main driver for thisconversation.
There's lots of things whenwe're looking at the capital
expenditure versus the return onthat investment that are
somewhat unable to be quantified.
You got to jump to a lot ofscenarios about injuries and the
(46:06):
number one goal is justeliminating that injury or the
possibility of it, and you knowwe talk about fall protection
and stuff like that and that'sprobably the first major risk
everybody thinks about.
But we do load rail, car andsome of that bitter cold or that
extreme heat which are verytaxing on the human body as well
.
So from a frostbite standpoint,the cold and heat exhaustion on
(46:28):
the really hot days.
And the other one that fallsinto it is thunderstorms and
lightning.
We suspend operations duringthat time for our personnel
safety, so it's one more areathat this can help alleviate
some of those needs.
Tom Boehm, President of RayH (46:41):
It was something that a potential
customer shared with us as wellis that we're very focused on
the safety aspects and they hadactually offered that.
We're missing a key driver hereand that is equality and
opportunity in the workplace.
That the loading of rail carsbecause it's a very laborious
and demanding on the body, it'slimited to a certain body type.
(47:06):
We'll say that People got to beable to physically do that work
over and over and, as we'vetalked about earlier in the show
here, there's a reducing levelof people in the workforce that
want to.
We just don't have large farmfamilies anymore and our smaller
centers are becoming lesspopulated and people are moving
to the cities more often andwe're struggling to find people
(47:28):
and resources to help,especially in the rural areas,
and do this work.
I think we're missing a goodchunk of our available force and
the fact that this is a taskthat's kind of a hazard to say.
It's kind of built for that160-pound to 250-pound body type
that can just have the strengthto rip those lids open and go
(47:51):
through the physical demands ofit.
We can automate this.
That changes everything Now.
It opens up your potentialworkforce even to perhaps
somebody that's not physicallycapable to be able to be in the
control room and running thesystem right, and that's a huge
part of it for every businessout there.
Brooke Blessington, Innovatio (48:10):
I think that you know, when you
consider agriculture being oneof the oldest and most
traditional industries that arethere, like every other industry
, we have to be able to evolveand become even more efficient.
And just the story of Ray andhis experience as an operator
down in the mine informing theRay Hawk solution that's really
important in innovation thatyou're considering who the
(48:30):
people are who will be usingthat.
You know somebody who hasinsider knowledge and able to
come up with the bestcapabilities and the best
solutions for the future and,like Tom was just saying, just
expanding that workforce acrossthe sector, just attracting new
talent, bringing the youth intowhat agriculture will become and
providing moretechnology-centered solutions.
(48:51):
I think attracts a differenttype of perspective and that can
just continue to leverage thosenew perspectives into
groundbreaking and game-changingtechnologies like what Ray Hawk
has come up with here.
Jim Lenz (49:04):
Yeah, I like that all of you brought this down not
just to an organizational level,not to an industry level.
You're really talking aboutindividuals and the care and
concern that you have for that.
So you know, if you look atindustries overall, different
sectors agriculture is actuallyone of the most efficient
(49:26):
industries.
Now you're taking it to a wholeother level in addition to that
, so excellent.
So let's turn to futuredevelopments and industry impact
.
Let's see if we provide someimpact here from the group on
exploring the potential futuredevelopments in autonomous rail
car loading technology and theirimplications for the industry,
(49:47):
for the railway loadout industry.
Tom Boehm, President of Ra (49:49):
Well , you know, thanks for the
question and through the wholecontext of the conversation
we've been really focusing onloading the bulk granular
materials into open style, opentop hopper style cars.
But that's only a small area ofwhat is shipped down the rail.
Specific to the granular, we'vetalked about the air knife
(50:11):
solution, we've talked about thecavity inspection, we've talked
about the seal removal, sealinstallation and the enterprise
solution that goes along withthat.
But going down to rail cars, wealso see large volume liquid
style cars, rail cars.
We also see large volume liquidstyle cars.
And you know, if you ever wantto, if you have young children
and you want to play a fun gameat a railway crossing, just
(50:31):
Google the placards as they goby and you'd be very surprised
what's in some of those cars asthey go along.
And once you really start tounderstand, okay, what's in
those cars, you start to gaineven more appreciation of who's
loading those cars, how is thathappening, and so on.
Our roadmap, on our developmentroadmap for this year and into
next, is to solve these samequestions and these same
(50:52):
challenges in the liquid carindustry, because you have
everything from peroxides toacids, to oils, to a variety of
different additives that arecompeting on the rail lines for
space and also have a verystrong export market but present
a whole different set ofchallenges.
They may be loaded hot, theymay be gaseous state, they may
(51:16):
require certain safetyprecautions.
And you know it was quiteunfortunate.
It was a little over a year ago.
I got called into a meetingwith a large shipper producer
that ships liquid product andthey asked if we had a
technology developed and I saidwe're working on it for liquids
and I said I'm sensing someurgency.
And they shared, they said wewish we had one yesterday.
(51:38):
You know they didn't get intowhat happened but you could tell
by the tone of the conversationthat it wasn't good right.
So there's a need there.
The fall arrest, all thesethings are the same but the
attributes are a little bitdifferent and there is some
actual barriers.
So that's definitely on ourtechnology development side.
Outside of the rail car andparticularly into the ag
(52:00):
industry, we're also developingand working on a new technology
for automated truck sampling.
So the purpose for theautomated truck sampling is a
number of things.
One, to be able to do it in theabsence of people present to
run those samples, offering thatvariability of sample while
(52:20):
maintaining quality.
So you know the randomness ofhow the samples is grabbed from
the incoming truck.
The second piece of that is itneeds to be coupled with the
grain grading aspects of theoperation, and really it's in
pursuit of what Dale hadmentioned earlier.
Is that how can we get theseagricultural facilities turned
(52:46):
into 24-hour operations wherethey could be receiving at the
beck and call of the producerand can be shipping at the beck
and call of the rail line or theshipping facility at port?
If we could get to that levelwhere you can push product
through as quickly as possiblewell, that helps every receiver
shipper operate at their optimumefficiency and while having a
(53:09):
strong focus on safety andkeeping people out of harm's way
.
Jim Lenz (53:13):
That's a great examination of how this is a
game changer, not just for thegrain industry.
Rail car loading system Now youmentioned looking at
technologies for samplingAmazing.
Let's discuss digitalization,advancement of brain handling
operations.
Brooke Blessington, Innova (53:31):
Yeah , I mean I think there could be,
you know, two components herethat I think would be important
to hit on, and one is just kindof circling back to that
sustainability aspect that wetalked about earlier.
You know, telling the story ofthe product the end user is
really like in ourhyper-connected global world,
the end user is really, reallyinterested in not only you know
the macro of what they're eating, but like who created it, where
(53:53):
did it come from?
What's the story of all of thatand I think that's an important
component that Rayhawk and thistechnology can help answer on
the rail car side of things.
That's definitely a trend thatwe're seeing and paying
attention to at Landis and atLandworks as well is how do you
help tell the story of how thatfood was produced?
You know, all the way from, youknow, the people who own the
(54:14):
land to the people who tend tothe land, all the way to the end
consumer.
You know that piece of thestorytelling is extremely
important in today's world andthe way that we're all such a
global community and the otherpart of it, jim, I would say,
would just be the trajectory ofdigitalizing everything that's
(54:35):
happening in agriculture, atLandis.
We are really interested andwe've got a couple of new types
of innovative solutions that arecoming out.
At LANDWERX we have theTesseract synthesis and at
Landus we just launched Conduit,which is a different type of
platform and a different company, and Dale I hope that you know
a little bit more about it thanI do but that's really something
that we see changing.
(54:55):
The face of agriculture isreally those two pieces and I
think that they do go hand inhand.
They're kind of woven togetherwhere you've got to have the
digital components, because noone person can put all those
pieces together, and it doestake automation and it does take
, you know, a perspective shiftof how do you capture that
information, how do you layer ittogether so that you can make
sense of it, so that the enduser sees the value of what was
(55:18):
produced.
Dale Vinsand, Director Of (55:19):
Dale , we do have a website for
conduitag.
Conduit is going to be a uniqueplatform that is going to offer
a different way to purchaseinputs for our farmer owners as
well as not just our owners butother farmers throughout the
United States.
In addition to that, it's gotsome financing options and stuff
(55:40):
available to it through Brookeand her team helping develop
Conduit.
Anybody interested in it wouldneed to create an email account
with us to be able to get moreinformation on that.
Jim Lenz (55:53):
All right, before we conclude, let's provide a quick
summary.
Let's do that for each of you.
I will start that with Brookereal overview statement, dale
same thing summary statement,and then Tom the inspiration
(56:14):
came from you We'll have somefinal concluding, summarizing
statements, and then again,president and CEO of Rayhawk
Technologies, tom as well.
All right, let's start withBrooke.
Brooke Blessington, Innovat (56:29):
Hey , thank you so much.
You know at LANDWERX we're justreally thrilled to engage in
all different types ofinnovation and especially to be
introduced to a company likeRayhawk.
At Landis and at LANDWERX we'rereally interested in finding
those change makers foragriculture and opening up doors
for the innovation that needsto occur in our sector.
Couldn't be more excited to bepart of the story and to figure
(56:52):
out ways to collaborate withRayhawk and companies like them
in the future.
Dale Vinsand, Director O (56:56):
Brooke did a really nice job of
wrapping it up from the landaside and I'll probably just tie
it in a little bit with Jeepsand the exchanges as well.
Here have innovative companiescome to that exchange each year.
Keep the excitement up,Overcome the exchange.
It's great to go and see oldfriends that you have met over
the years and stuff like thatthat you've done with projects,
(57:17):
but it's always refreshing justto see a new face with a new
technology that keeps movingeverything forward, not just for
Landus but for everybody that'sinvolved in the agricultural
sector.
That's terrific.
Thank you, Dale.
Ray Boehm, Inspiration Beh (57:31):
Well , thank you for giving me an
opportunity to say a few things.
It's great to see the youngpeople with all this technology.
It's something else.
Jim Lenz (57:44):
Thank you something else, thank you, and you've
taken it so far, ray.
You were the inspiration.
It is so incredibly special tohave you on the Whole Grain
Podcast, because people want toknow where this came from.
This wasn't a thought yesterday.
It wasn't a thought a year ortwo ago.
This really evolved from yourpersonal experience and that is
(58:04):
really special.
It's important to know thestory behind a product or
service.
People want to invest in it andyou've all provided a great
resource.
So, tom, if you could,conclusionary statements here,
yeah, you bet.
First of all.
Tom Boehm, President of Ra (58:19):
It's just truly amazing as we go
along and have theseopportunities to do a podcast
and work with companies likeLandis and Landworks, to take
something that starts off as adream and a vision and an idea
and see it grow into atechnology and there's risk all
along we talked about that alongthe way but as it's growing.
(58:39):
But then when you start to meetgreat people and you start to
see that they see the potentialand that they see the, the
strategy, the advantage and theefficiency and and how, what it
means to their business, itstarts to almost make its own
heat and create fire.
Right, and and it's every timewe have a conversation like this
and and or we you know weattend Jeeps exchange down
(59:01):
Kansas city and see theexcitement that the topic raised
down there it's just it's.
And see the excitement that thetopic raised down there.
It's inspiring, it just keepsus going and we're just really
pleased to be able to bring thisto the market and help people
solve problems, to honestlyevolve as an industry and make
sure people get home safe and wecan honestly make sure that
(59:25):
North America as a whole staysin its rightful place as a
number one in the global supplychain of the agriculture mining
sectors.
That's really what we're tryingto do, right.
Jim Lenz (59:35):
Thank you.
I just want to say those wholegrain podcast listeners who are
joining us today, this impactsyou, this impacts your
organization, this impacts theindustry.
I think that one of the bestthings you could do, whole grain
podcast listeners, right now,is to share this episode with
your colleagues, share thisepisode with your team, your
(59:57):
organization.
It's easy to do.
It really gives a showcase ofagain the story, the meaning
behind it, the technology andhow it can support incredible
organizations like LANDWERX andLandus, but I think, also an
action from this, and we'llinclude this in the show notes
for this episode.
The visual of this working is amust, and so I'm going to ask
(01:00:21):
you, tom, how can listenersright now, after this episode,
how can they see this in action?
Where do they go, how do theyconnect with you, how do they
connect with their team, how dothey connect through the video
and other things?
And we'll include again this inthe show notes.
Tom Boehm, President of Ray (01:00:37):
You bet the best place is to drive
the traffic to our website atwwwrayhawkca.
But you know, with thewonderful search engines we have
, if you Google or searchRayhawk, you'll find us on
Instagram, you'll find us onLinkedIn, you'll find us on your
(01:00:57):
website.
There's YouTube.
There's a tremendous amount ofdocumentation out there.
Unfortunately, we do have someindustrial installations
operating right now, but youwon't see a lot of documents out
there that are publiclyavailable simply because of the
legalities around sharingcustomer information.
But we've got a lot of greatinformation out there.
Wonderful to watch Great musicin the background.
(01:01:20):
It's fantastic.
Jim Lenz (01:01:22):
Excellent, excellent, excellent.
So again, thank you so much.
I appreciate you all joining us.
I want to thank you, tom andRay from Rayhawk Technologies,
for making this episode possibleand for teaching others and
informing others about thisreally groundbreaking technology
to improving safety, improvingefficiency, and it really can be
(01:01:43):
implemented in both large andsmall operations with railways.
So thank you LANDWERX, thankyou Brooke BLESSINGTON for
joining us and thank you, DaleVinsand from Landus for your
great insights and supportingthis message.
I really appreciate that.
I just want to encouragelisteners to explore more about
Rayhawk Technologies Inc andtheir transformative solutions
(01:02:07):
that are out there Again.
Check out or info rayhawkca.
out more information.
We'll include those links inthe show . .
We'll include the links toLandus and LANDWERX.
Well, thank you all on behalfof the entire GEAPS
organization, we thank you forbeing part of this episode
(01:02:27):
fantastic, thank you, thank you.
Whole Grain Podcast listeners,thank you for your participation
in the show.
Hey, don't forget to share thisimportant episode with your
network.
You can catch up on all WholeGrain Podcast episode at www.
GEAPS.
COM/WHOLEGRAIN .
You can also catch up on theshow by connecting with your
favorite podcast app.
(01:02:48):
Just do a search for a wholegrain, hit the subscribe button.
That way, all episodes will bedownloaded to your device as
soon as they are released.
Plus, you can check up on pastepisodes as well.
The whole grain show is aproduction of GEAPS, the Grain
Elevator and Processing Society.
The Grain Elevator andProcessing Society is the
largest organization dedicatedto advancing the grain handling
(01:03:09):
and processing industry.
Be sure to check out www.
geaps.
com.
That's G-E-A-P-S dot com.
The Whole Grain Podcast offersa terrific opportunity to
spotlight your businessorganization.
Want to sponsor an episode andbe a featured guest?
Please reach out to me, JimLenz, director of Global
Training and Education at GEAPSand host and producer of the my
(01:03:32):
email is , .
We look forward to connectingwith you.
We thank Rayhawk TechnologiesIncorporated for sponsoring this
episode.
Their message was an importantone and can really revolutionize
the industry.
Have yourself a great day andthanks for listening to Whole
(01:03:54):
Grain.
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