Transfer points are finally being recognised as key elements in industrial plants, and Mark Baller, managing director of Weba Chute Systems, says this has seen other players enter the market as they, too, begin to recognise transfer points as critical to the operational success of plants.

'As the market leader, with more than 4 000 Weba Chute Systems successfully operating globally, we welcome legitimate competition, as it keeps companies motivated and customers are assured of continual improvement in both product and service delivery,' he says. Significantly, the global benchmark for transfer points is the Weba Chute System.

Weba Chute Systems pioneered the engineered transfer point, and extensive research and development by the company identified the root causes of numerous problems related to materials handling and transfer points. These include lack of material control, resulting in excessive impact and poor belt loading, disproportionate wear, excessive dust emissions and spillage.

Today, the Weba Chute System is a custom-engineered transfer point solution designed to address the numerous issues plants face with material movement. Each chute system is engineered for the specific application and this is what accounts for the success of these transfer points worldwide.

What makes it difficult for new entrants to get transfer points correct is that there are so many factors that affect the material during its movement through the plant, says Baller, adding that each transfer point will have completely different requirements, depending on what stage of the process flow the material is.

'Experience cannot be underestimated when it comes to correctly engineering a chute system, as each application is completely different,' he says.

'Weba Chute Systems has an enormous advantage over the newbies, given that we have over 25 yearsí experience and a reference base that dates back that far,' Baller says. Each of the chute system solutions provided by Weba Chute Systems was a custom-engineered transfer point designed to specifically deal with exact application requirements.

During the design phase, all aspects ñ such as belt speed, belt width, material size, shape and throughput ñ are taken into account. The custom design allows for control of the direction, flow and velocity of a calculated volume and type of material in each individual application and, at the same time, it drastically reduces dust.

Using a ësupertubeí or cascade scenario, 95% of the material runs on material in a tumbling motion, which further reduces wear.
'Weba Chute Systems takes great pride in the fact that the transfer point is no longer the stepchild of the process plant and has been given its rightful position as an integral and important part of the operation,' Baller says.