In my recent book on industries, I showed no love for plastics industries as modeling subjects, going so far as to call them “boring”. The audacity….and apparently a somewhat uninformed take. One of my frequent blog readers, Blake B., offered a much more educated perspective in a recent email.
“I did have an observation, regarding the section on plastic pellet facilities.
For the longest time, I was under the impression that the move was pull the empty string of hoppers and spot the loaded string. After some research and speaking with some folks in the industry, a lot of the pellet receiving industries are actually very similar to corn syrup industries. Very often they are car spot dependent. If a plant is making several different types of plastic products, they can receive several different grades of plastic pellets, all which need to be spotted at the correct hose outlet, so they can be vacuumed to the correct tank. On top of that, half loads will often be pulled and placed off spot until the product’s storage bin gets low. The half loads are then respotted for more unloading.
Throw in loaded cars off spots that are waiting for spots to open up, you’ve got one heck of a switching opportunity! Just wanted to share some info I’ve learned the past year”
Thanks Blake! Although this doesn’t apply across the board, for those that have the book I would print this blog out and insert it your book around page 44 where I discuss plastics.
Wow that’s pretty interesting for sure for the plastics industry. It makes sense they’d have different grades and spot, re-spot is interesting as well.