“There are other people in the collision avoidance space and robotic space, but so far to date, from our research, we are the only ones combining it into one central graphical user interface (GUI),” says long-time Sales Manager Marc Brunet.

For both aboveground and underground mining, communications are critical for safety and efficiency. It was this mindset that led to the founding of Jannatec over four decades ago, and the release of its first product, the revolutionary Johnny Light. Merging a lamp and radio, the Johnny Light was a revolution in mining communication and safety and is still sold to this day.

Evolving over the decades, the Johnny Light combines the safety features of a rugged helmet with reliable communication capabilities. Like other Jannatec products, this smart helmet is customizable and comes in a variety of colours. High-visibility LEDs on the brim provide 360 degrees of lighting, while Mesh Communication from tech leader Sena Industrial enables workers to perform tasks hands-free, optimizing productivity.

With the next generation in development, the rechargeable Johnny Light can also be outfitted with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tagging for identification and tracking, and a camera to record photos and videos, which can easily be transferred via USB to a computer.

Partnering with Motorola Solutions, Jannatec is working on the G4 version of its popular product, a ruggedized, two-way radio with the ability to do radio and LTE so it can interact with new and old communication systems.

Presently, about 85 percent of the company’s clients use LMR—two-way land mobile radio systems—for underground communications. However, newer mine sites worldwide are implementing LTE (long-term evolution) so they can use cell phones for underground and surface operations. Representing the next generation of wireless communication, LTE has many advantages over LMR, including not having to rely on big telecom companies. Other key advantages include the ability to make private one-to-one calls instead of broadcasting to the masses, and using cell phones to upload or download pertinent information like diagrams and schematics.

“We are always on the threshold of new technologies,” says company President Rey Boucher. “By doing all this, you become more efficient. Instead of waiting until the end of the day to give someone their new task, you can dynamically change tasks so people are more efficient in their production.”

Like other products from Jannatec, the Johnny Light not only represents technological innovation but is durable and made to withstand extremely harsh environments in the form of challenging mine site operations. The company has seen Johnny Lights used in the field for 15 years or more.

“Our claim to fame is that our Johnny Light is mine-proof,” says Boucher. “And our goal is to build a communication device that will operate on legacy communication mediums and new technologies. We are the only one today we know of who does that in one package.”

Today, the company is seeing more and more environmental, social, and governance (ESG) requests from clients, which align perfectly with its sustainability goals. Since products like the Johnny Light are combined, mine workers carry less equipment; this means fewer charging stations, less infrastructure to support, less power required, and reduced e-waste. Clients can also return and recycle batteries and other products. And since apps are non-proprietary, customers are free to use their own for productivity.

For years, a big part of Jannatec’s success has been that everything is serviceable. Parts can be easily changed or repaired, and clients are trained and have the right to repair Johnny Lights. And instead of forcing buyers to purchase new chargers with every product version, Jannatec doesn’t use different cables unless absolutely necessary. Seeing that some mines have 800 to 900 radios, this represents huge savings on chargers alone.

Always on the lookout for new technology, and busily expanding its services and market reach, Jannatec continues to grow internally and externally. About two years ago, the company purchased and remodelled Mobile Communication Services (MCS) in Hamilton, Ontario. Serving the province’s communication needs for a quarter of a century, Jannatec MCS is a full-service business, selling and renting Motorola products and providing licensed technicians.

“We had existing clients that didn’t know what Jannatec could do, and now we are working with them on bigger projects to streamline their efforts,” says Brunet. “So we are bringing technology to help them with their performance.” The MCS purchase will see Jannatec increase its geographic footprint and enter other verticals with its technology, such as steel plants, construction, aggregate, warehousing, and more.

Considered by Jannatec to be “the most advanced underground wireless communication system” in mining, SmartView allows mines and other industries to monitor their equipment in real time, enhance worker safety, and help achieve satisfactory ROI. Via the company’s J.A.W.S Proximity Detection Application—which stands for Jannatec Advanced Warning System—SmartView helps greatly improve mine site safety. A centralized GUI interface, it helps foster situational awareness on one main screen, as seen in today’s cars. This includes lane departure, backup cameras, and adaptive cruise control.

“For all the technologies available today, we bring that philosophy, that mentality, into industrial applications,” comments Brunet. “We are leaning on a lot of those technologies to come up with something that is more industrialized, and we call that SmartView.”

With the ability to perform a digitalized circle check as opposed to a physical walk-around, the technology also provides information on tire pressure, oil levels, and much more. Instead of being entered on paper and analyzed, which can take days, information is collected and analyzed in minutes. Captured digitally, it is readily available to mobile superintendents who can send a message to workers about potential issues. As a result, it helps prevent catastrophic failures and lost time and money.

Another feature is TBAC, which stands for Training Based Access Control. A type of access card, it is scanned to determine if trained workers are allowed to start up and operate vehicles. If someone is not certified, the vehicle won’t allow them permission. This information is then catalogued, with information sent to mobile superintendents.

“It can be used for training, disciplining, and controlling where the vehicles are,” Boucher explains. “If someone moves the vehicle and they can’t find it, it wastes time, and this prevents it.” As an added measure, tracking chips can also be placed on vehicles, which can then be located and tracked through underground RFID.

With the purchase of MCS, Jannatec is looking at bringing its technology to sectors other than mining, such as transportation and logistics for the trucking industry. And in collision avoidance, Jannatec is eyeing other industries, including warehousing and construction, where blind spots are common.

In underground mining, vehicles are in tunnels and go forward or reverse, making backup cameras essential. With surface construction, however, a full 360° view is crucial on trucks and other heavy vehicles for the safety of workers and the public.

“So we’ve introduced radar and ultrasonic technology for surface, and that will be tied to the one module that’s on our tablet,” says Brunet. “It’s our main interface, but it’s modularized, so you can add modules as you go. You don’t need to buy the whole Cadillac at the beginning—you can buy the base module, and then add radar technology on the surface because there are always blind spots,” he says.

“People don’t realize how many blind spots there are in construction, because you’ve got pedestrians thinking the driver sees them, but they don’t, and that’s how accidents happen.” Radar on a screen will indicate, on multiple levels (audio and visual), where the individual is in relation to the vehicle. As with underground collision avoidance, this technology will detect potential hazards or people, and apply the brakes if necessary.

Recently, the company underwent a management change, with CEO Wayne Ablitt retiring in 2024. But Jannatec will continue to increase its technology aspirations in mining and other verticals and expand its geographic footprint in the United States. “In the next three to four years, we want to have an office in the U.S. representing Jannatec itself,” says Boucher.

Part of the role of this new office will be to build relationships between MineConnect in Canada and the United States. The most logical place to situate it is Elko, Nevada, a central mining hub. “You need to have a client to open up, and MineConnect gives us the ability to bridge that time to see if there is business there or not,” says Brunet.

To demonstrate its products, the company will also have a booth at the upcoming MINExpo® 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Using a 20-foot-long track and a small-scale truck to simulate obstructions, Jannatec will demonstrate its advanced collision avoidance technologies. “You can sit there and hold the remote-control full throttle, and the truck will not go anywhere until the obstruction is gone,” says Boucher. The screen on the truck will also be mirrored to a stand-up display, so visitors can see operations for themselves.

“We don’t talk a lot about the service part of our business, but it’s our service that retains the business,” says Brunet. “We have a very strong service team, very knowledgeable, and that’s where relationships are built,” he says.

“Our clients trust us for what we do. When we say we are going to do something, we keep our word, and do it.”

The post Durable, Dependable, and Trusted<p class="company">Jannatec Technologies</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Macrodyne continues to invest in this capacity through both organic growth and strategic acquisition to ensure it has the capabilities to address the rapidly changing needs of industry in the wake of Industry 4.0. The company integrates technology and innovation to bridge the gap between legacy machines that are built to last and the advanced capabilities of Industry 4.0 to unlock the potential of optimized manufacturing processes for customers in North America and around the world.

A global strategy
One element that is common amongst industry leaders is the willingness to invest in internal capacity to sustain and encourage growth. This is especially true of Macrodyne, which, under its new leadership, has infused a renewed sense of energy and purpose into the company over the last five years.

As part of Macrodyne, Dunkes GmbH, a well-established German press manufacturer with a history dating back to 1960, has roots that afford it a strong reputation in the European market. Both companies are built upon sound engineering, but Macrodyne’s engineering expertise gives it the ability to customize to suit, whereas Dunkes’ solutions are more out-of-the-box, which makes the relationship between the two compatible and complementary.

According to Director of Business Development Jeffrey Walsh, the acquisition of Dunkes has afforded Macrodyne several new technologies that will give it access to new industries and sectors within which it can position itself as a leader.

As Walsh says, “We’re sharing technologies and we’re treating it as one global company while maintaining Dunkes’ brand name and all the goodwill they have. They brought some pretty unique technology to the forefront that we didn’t have.”

Macrodyne is also working on building strategic relationships in North America to strengthen its foothold in the market. The company has carefully curated joint ventures in the United States and Mexico, giving it the opportunity to have boots on the ground for its customers in the U.S. while expanding its influence south of the Mexican border.

“That allows us to manufacture in both the U.S. and Mexico, enabling us to better serve those markets because we can build more efficiently. They also do our support and installations,” explains Walsh of a model of growth that is serving Macrodyne well.

Tech-enabled growth
While Macrodyne expands its international presence, growth is also taking place closer to home. To supplement the engineering and manufacturing capabilities at its headquarters in Concord, Ontario, it added an automation operation in Kingston, Ontario.

Walsh explains that the Kingston office is, “solely focused on automation: custom machine design, robotics, material handling, all the peripherals that are required to support a press both upstream and downstream.”

The ability to supply customers with a turnkey solution will empower Macrodyne to undertake even larger projects than it does at present, possibly even doubling project size, which is impressive considering its presses can range up to 30,000 tons. This is extremely valuable as Macrodyne manufactures hydraulic presses for countless advanced manufacturing applications and its presses can be integrated with virtually any ancillary equipment, including press loading/unloading devices, transfer systems, robots, and fully automated die storage and retrieval systems.

One of its newest and most impressive capabilities is Gas Oscillation Enhanced Superplastic Forming (GO-SPF), a disruptive technology that is referred to as the next generation of superplastic forming, transforming what used to take hours into mere minutes. GO-SPF changes the game by adding gas oscillations to traditional SPF, integrating a Gas Oscillation System (GOS) and a Supersonic Fluidic Oscillator (SFO), along with pressure controllers and sensors, resulting in improved formability that exceeds both SPF and Quick Plastic Forming (QPF). Impressively, GO-SPF enables greater formability of alloy sheets, which supports the formation of more geometrically complex parts of higher quality, and does so more efficiently and cost-effectively than traditional superplastic forming. The result is a groundbreaking technology that can boost manufacturing speed.

Walsh offers some insight into the innovation, which is already being leveraged by world-class aerospace companies: “We’re changing the way that the gas flows into the forming process and instead of a process taking, say, 15 minutes, we can do it in one to two minutes, substantially reducing the time it takes to produce parts. Another process might take an hour or two for titanium components and we’re now doing that in 20 minutes.” As opposed to blowing the gas, it is oscillated at the same time, essentially massaging and stress-relieving the material as it is being formed. This allows the material to be formed at a much higher rate.

For 10 years, GO-SPF underwent extensive research, trial and error, and rigorous testing, and during this period, it has proven itself to be a formidable powerhouse in the industry. It enhances material properties, allowing for better elongation and thickness uniformity, resulting in faster production with lower energy consumption—a true win-win. “GO-SPF not only speeds up production but also improves the quality of the parts we produce. It’s a breakthrough that addresses long-standing industry challenges,” says Walsh.

GO-SPF technology has the ability to redefine manufacturing, enabling companies to be more efficient, save money, and create parts that are currently unattainable with existing processes.

Another innovative application is servo-hydraulic presses, which is not a new technology, but one that has been tucked away in the Dunkes vaults waiting to be discovered and marketed to the world, which is exactly what Macrodyne has done. The force of these presses is controlled by servo valves, which are directed by proprietary software and state-of-the-art control systems that promote greater accuracy, repeatability, and speed, which is the kind of value advanced manufacturing needs.

New markets, new horizons
As the market evolves and the needs of industry change, so too does Macrodyne. While the engineering strength of the company remains the same, the applications where it can apply only continue to grow.

In the U.S. there is a major push to strengthen domestic manufacturing and reinforce supply chains to ensure they are no longer vulnerable to global disruptions. This includes significant federal funding for battery production for electric vehicles (EV) as well as semiconductors, which are necessary for automotive production—markets where Macrodyne has found a way to play with specialized manufacturing processes.

“We’re employing a lot of new technologies to develop different styles of batteries for EV and grid storage applications, so we’re developing new processes and new manufacturing techniques to allow the manufacturing of them; as companies develop and invent new batteries, they need new ways to assemble them or manufacture them,” Walsh shares.

He goes on to explain that Macrodyne recently implemented the first of four presses that are used to manufacture semiconductor targets. “They’ll take a 400-pound billet of lithium or one of these really funky alloys, and then our press will knead that material like a bakery would knead bread until they’ve arranged all the grain structures into uniformed orientation. Those billets are then cut and turned into semiconductor targets that they spray atomized materials onto.”

Macrodyne has built a completely autonomous manufacturing cell with a 10,000-ton press and automated mobile robots (AMR) that deliver raw material and remove the finished product. “The system can run lights-out so all the ovens, the robots, the quality control, the quenching, the laser inspection, the automatic cool changing—everything to manufacture these products,” explains Walsh.

While some of the applications and technologies are certainly interesting, others are considered necessary to national security. The ongoing wars that are taking place around the world have led to an uptick of work in military and defense applications as well.

“The U.S. is depleting a lot of their stockpile of munitions and equipment, tanks, military personnel carriers, so all the supply chains are being taxed right now to manufacture more and more of these materials because they are being used,” Walsh says of Macrodyne’s efforts to support the replenishment of parts for submarines and the like.

Unlocking potential in the age of data
Beyond geopolitical challenges, Industry 4.0 has also introduced new variables that manufacturers must consider, particularly those with legacy equipment who are confronted by the need to upgrade, retrofit, and integrate modern technology. The company has developed a predictive maintenance system that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to effectively monitor manufacturing processes: the speed and temperature of motors, vibrations, force, heat of lubricants, electronic and mechanical devices—anything that can generate actionable data that can be used to inform the decision-making process in the interest of optimization.

“We capture all of the data and then, with AI, we can actually start to predict when a motor is going to fail, instead of waiting for a motor to fail: this motor has been vibrating, this motor is getting hotter, this motor is taking more electricity, it’s drawing more power.” These are all indications of eventual motor failure, so instead of waiting for an unplanned shutdown to repair or replace the motor, Macrodyne can have inventory on hand and can perform a planned shutdown before a failure occurs. This proactive approach limits costly downtime and provides peace of mind and profitability.

“With the software package that we’re developing for predictive maintenance, we’re doing it for our own internal purposes of our equipment, but we can even monitor hardware and systems that customers have in their building. Their legacy equipment can now be monitored, and they can start to see the benefits of this predictive maintenance and AI to actually look over machines that are decades old,” explains Walsh.

Service and support after the sale have always been another important part of the value proposition Macrodyne offers, but investments like these will be key for its customers to integrate modern and legacy systems to meet increasing demand amidst a historic skilled labor shortage. For this reason, and so many more, Macrodyne ceases to be a hydraulic press manufacturer and instead assumes the role of manufacturing partner, one that has an astute understanding of the needs of industry and how best to unlock the potential of the manufacturing sector.

The post Unlocking the Potential of Manufacturing<p class="company">Macrodyne Technologies</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

LLS has a team of certified EPA HVAC specialists who service all makes and models of aquariums. The company recognizes that an aquarium, lobster tanks included, is a living ecosystem, and routine maintenance is crucial in maintaining a well-functioning mechanical system to support the marine species that live within.

Not only does LLS offer its White Glove Quarterly Service (Full Service, every three months), it responds within 24 hours to emergencies in its service areas. In addition, LLS holds patents on innovative features including the Raintray Bio Filtration System™, Asset Protection™ built into every tank it manufactures, and the unique Signature Shellfish Spa™, set to be an industry game-changer.

To learn more about LLS’s products and services that guarantee supermarkets and restaurants can offer fresh, succulent, and healthy seafood products—lobster, oysters, clams, scallops, or crab—while ensuring the seafood department operates efficiently, we spoke with Thomas Olsen, company President and CEO.

Before Olsen took us back to LLS’s beginnings in 1989, he told us one thing that was important for readers to understand. “I cannot talk about my company or where we are today without talking about my Christian faith, which is the reason for our success. We are family-owned and faith-driven, and we feel our reason for being is serving others, doing good in the community, and giving back.”

The story behind Lobster Life Systems and marine salt
LLS was founded by chemist Richard Tokosh, who Olsen says held multiple patents for formulas he developed for cosmetics and soaps sold by Avon, as well as the Intuition razor with a built-in soap dispenser. But his venture into manufacturing marine salt was serendipitous. According to Olsen, Tokosh was having dinner with a friend who confided about difficulties in keeping fish alive in his aquarium and wondered if Tokosh could help, since he was knowledgeable about the different salts used in soap.

Tokosh had a good relationship with chemists at the University of Rhode Island’s oceanography department and together they formulated a marine salt, which Tokosh began manufacturing in his garage and giving to friends who found their fish thriving on it. Then he started selling it to local pet stores and supermarkets for use in live lobster tanks. At the time he was still working for Avon, but the marine salt business became so successful that he acquired a larger facility and hired his first employee, and so LLS was born.

The high-quality marine salt continues to be a cornerstone of the company to this day, with the product sold in 40-pound boxes in the eastern U.S. and shipped by truck to a distributor on the west coast.

Meanwhile, in 1989, Olsen was working his way through the seafood industry, starting at an independent fish market and then at ShopRite as seafood manager at the retail level, before being hired by the parent company, Wakefern Food, in a corporate position as seafood merchandiser. “I was planning new stores, recommending equipment and whatever it takes to increase sales, and I was buying lobster tanks from LLS,” he says.

Olsen had also developed a good relationship with Tokosh and, in 2012, he approached him about buying the company, as at age 70 he was ready to retire.

“He told me, ‘I have an investor who has a ton of money who wants to buy my company, but zero knowledge about the industry, and I have you, with a ton of knowledge and zero money. But I am not going to take the blood and sweat I put into this company and hand it over to an investor who will destroy it, as all investors understand is dollars and cents. You are the best person I know to grow the company.’”

By 2014, Olsen was ready. “After we talked numbers, I cashed out everything I owned, my 401(k), and my savings account, refinanced my house, and bought the company. To his credit, Richard held the note, and I repaid him over time.”

Custom manufacturing and advanced systems
10 years later, Tokosh’s belief in Olsen’s extensive 26-year industry experience and knowledge, and trust that he could “elevate LLS into a whole new stratosphere,” has been validated. Today it is a North American-wide company, with a 45 percent growth rate since 2014 and patented, innovative features, products, and services that put it ahead of the competition.

There are other companies manufacturing lobster tanks in an assembly line format, with standard sizes, “but we don’t do that. Everything we make is made by hand and made to order, and this is where we have a leg up, because I know from experience that every bit of real estate in a supermarket is valuable, and the merchandiser’s job is to capitalize on that.”

He shares an example of a situation where the equipment purchasing agent is dealing with a 31-inch space to fit in a lobster tank and the only offerings are either an inch too long or three inches too short, leaving an empty space that is too small to be used profitably. “So, we work with the blueprint, and we build the tank to fit and capitalize on sales,” he says.

“I live through the eyes of our customers (supermarkets, restaurants, and wholesalers); I know what they look for, how they operate, what goes on behind the counter, and I share this with my team so they can understand the world we service. Many companies operate in the red on lobsters and where we come in is with some of the features we have built into our tanks that will keep the lobster alive longer and make it easier for our associates to maintain and clean the tank, ultimately saving them money.”

Innovative offerings
In the event of a power or pump failure which prevents oxygen flowing into the water, lobsters will die, because they cannot live in stagnant water for more than an hour and will suffocate due to lack of oxygen. To overcome this, LLS has devised a system which, through the force of gravity when the power has failed, will allow the water to drop into a holding tank beneath the visible tank, allowing the lobsters to live up to 10 hours outside water. When the power returns, the tank will automatically fill up again.

“We call this Asset Protection™, the asset being the lobster, because the fatality rate has been greatly reduced,” Olsen shares.

Before lobsters can be put into a display case, they need to be purged—that is, placed in a container with cold water poured on their backs and left there for 20 minutes to urinate and defecate and acclimatize themselves to their new environment. Dealing with the process is a messy, unpleasant procedure for employees, often resulting in spills on the floor and splashes on workers, as store employees have to remove the lobsters and empty buckets of purged water. But LLS’ patented Self-contained Purge System has ended the messiness.

Under the display tank is a separate tank in which the lobsters are placed, and which is filled up with water from the display tank. After 20 minutes, the purge water is drained and the lobsters are removed, inspected, and then placed in the display tank, which has refilled. “We have made the process easy and sanitary. It’s a feather in our cap as no one else has done that and we’ve patented it.”

LLS’s newest product offer, developed and perfected over the last five years, is its Signature Shellfish Spa™. It is designed specifically for raw bar restaurants or any retailer who wants to up their seafood game by offering varieties of shellfish—mollusks, oysters, clams, steamers—that are the cleanest, freshest, and safest possible.

In an attractive unit, easily serviced from behind, ice-cold, UV-sterilized water is circulated and rained down upon multiple layers of shellfish varieties, giving overlooked varieties center stage. The shellfish are plump and juicy, the clams are sand-free, and even more important, they are clean. There’s an inherent danger in eating raw shellfish, as Olsen explains. “In their natural environment, clams and oysters are filter feeders, and they are taking in pathogens as they keep the water we swim in clean. We want to make the shellfish clean and safe for people to eat, and when the sterilized water passes through them, the pathogens are killed off,” he says.

“The UV-sterilization units we use are manufactured by Aqua Ultraviolet out of California, one of the largest producers of this type of unit. We put in two of them, so our units are rated to treat up to 300 gallons of water, although we only circulate 70 gallons. We overtreat as we understand the risks involved with raw seafood and we want to eliminate the risks.”

LLS engaged an independent laboratory to run comparison tests on seafood kept in the spa and refrigerated seafood. The tests showed that the amounts of coliform bacteria in refrigerated shellfish actually increased over time, whereas the amounts in shellfish from the spa decreased over time. The longer the time in the spa, the greater the decrease, while the converse was true for the refrigerated shellfish: the longer the latter were kept refrigerated, the more the bacteria proliferated.

This independent study gave Olsen the confidence to take the Signature Shellfish Spa™ to national restaurant shows in New York and Chicago, and since then interest has grown, with restaurants and retailers who have purchased the units indicating overwhelmingly positive responses from consumers and increased sales of over 50 percent.

The future for LLS
“Ours is a growing business,” Olsen concludes, “and I believe it is growing because we put our faith and trust in God. I’m not going to tell you I am the smartest businessman or a brilliant marketer, but I think our success is because of our faith and our commitment to our customers,” he says.

“We maintain a relationship with customers after our sales, and we do pride ourselves on these relationships and on being there for them when they call for advice. We remember who they are and when they call, we speak directly to them—there’s no automated answering service.” Something which this writer can verify!

The post Where Fresh Comes to Life<p class="company">Lobster Life Systems</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.