Miller Magazine Issue: 125 May 2020

71 COVER STORY MILLER / MAY 2020 the mechanical efforts requested and the red line indicates the full material resistance. When the blue line crosses the red line limits it means that the requested efforts are bigger than the material resistance, that is, the structural designing do not attend the safety rules. To the Kepler Weber silos evaluated, we confirm that the used coefficient attends the regulation standards. The curve of requested efforts (blue line) always was below of mate- rial full resistance (red line), ensuring the structural safety of the steel silo. Beyond structural safety, it is very important that the steel silos allow conditions for food safety on the opera- tion, keeping the grains well maintained for a long period. For this, the use of automation and monitoring system is fundamental. For this purpose, in 2019 Kepler Weber launched a plat- form called SYNC, which contains digital thermometry, monitoring on the cloud and drying automation through IoT (Internet of Things) concept. On the technology de- velopment, it was mapped the critical control points of all storage process, as shown on the figure 5. With the use of SYNC technology, it is possible to re- motely monitor all these points, through sensors connected to the platform on the cloud, reducing losses on: • Impurities and moisture determination errors; • Inadequate movement and conveying; • Equipment adjustments not efficient; • Lack of cleanliness of equipment and installations; • Poorly performed drying; • Lack of storage ideals conditions. On the storage case, specifically, the use of digital ther- mometry sensors connecting to the cloud make the grain conservation process ideal, through temperature reading with microchips that do not have read interferences and remote follow up on the app to smartphone in real time. A uniform grain temperature during all drying process is very important to have the best storage quality. This is pos- Figure 5. Critical Control Points of post-harvest process Source: Kepler Weber (2020) Figure 6. Digital sensor microchip and temperature reading with smartphone Source: Kepler Weber (2020)