December 2011 - Troy and Dean enjoyed meeting a lot of new people at the Almond Board Show in Modesto, CA.

Submitted by Dean Coffee

Submitted by Dean Coffee

Troy Jackson and I went to the Almond Conference in Modesto, California, December 5th – 9th, 2011. We were able to get the GVX1020 wrestled into position for the show directly across from the dining area. We were the last booth everyone saw as they came to the dining room and they walked directly at us as they were leaving. Needless to say right after lunch time we were very busy.

Oliver is gaining an excellent reputation in the almond industry after the placement of the 4800 Hi-Cap Platinum at Braden Farms. There are several people watching how the machine at Dick Braden Farms does. They even wanted to know how the new one at Harris Woolf is doing that even though it isn’t even delivered yet. We are excited to show them how well these machines.
We worked in conjunction with Vogel to get more information about our machines to the show attendees. If they went by the Vogel booth and asked to see a machine they sent them over to us. If they happened to stop by our booth and wanted to see an actual demonstration of what we could do, we sent them over to the Vogel booth as they had a video going of the Braden Farms excellent separation.

Brad Craven, the General Manager at Superior Almond Hulling in Cantua Creek near Fresno stopped by the booth and is really interested in seeing what the machine at Harris Woolf does. Below are quotes from him that show the state of the almond business:

“California almonds are more popular than ever. It may be the taste, crunch, or Vitamin E. Whatever the reason; people around the world are spending money on valley grown almonds.” Brad Craven is the General Manager at Superior Almond Hulling in Cantua Creek. He went on to say, “We’ve received twice as many loads as we average from years before per day. A lot more volume a lot faster.”

Craven says business is up 25% since last year. The USDA is projecting the biggest almond harvest in world history. Craven says, “We had a mild summer. Worried growers but as it turned out the yield was very strong. The weather must have been ideal.” Superior Almond Hulling got so much business; Craven was forced to rent space from his neighbor. It’s the biggest harvest he’s ever seen. He says, “They used to think one billion pounds would be impossible to make, but now are looking at 2 billion pounds. Still market is taking it up.”
Brad says his current facility can’t handle the volume and they are seeing the end of processing going into March. Historically the almond processing is finished in January. He also said there is another 5,000 acre ranch coming that will process nothing but almonds.

Tim, with Harris Woolf, stopped by and asked if we had shipped his machine yet! He said he would take it right now if we had it ready. He is really excited to get the new automated machine in place and processing!

Many other people also stopped by and took literature then went over the view the video in the Vogel booth. We even received a request for some almond business in India. We also had a newspaper photographer stop by the booth while I was talking to a customer. He took some pictures and we wound up the lead picture in a story about the Almond Conference in the Modesto Bee newspaper.

I think the show went extremely well and we are looking forward to developing relationships with the Almond Board members that prove that the Oliver Manufacturing makes the best, most reliable machines for their separation needs.

Miss America 2011, Theresa Scanlon, signs autographs at the ASTA Show directly next to the Oliver Manufacturing booth.

Oliver representatives talked to hundreds of people about our latest innovations in seed processing at the ASTA Show.

Oliver Manufacturing went to The American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) 128th Annual Conference and Seed Expo in Chicago on December 5th through 9th with the most representatives they have ever taken to a trade show. Brian Burney, Jon Moreland, and Shane Pritchard were joined by new Oliver employees Ann Burney and Bill Pratt. In addition, Craig Lindholm, formerly from Gustafson, was there to bring his expertise in seed enhancement field as well as representing Oliver Fluid Bed Dryers.

There were close to 2,500 attendees at the 2011 Conference and Seed Expo making it the largest seed industry convention in the country. It was a trade show for all commodities in the seed industry together with the ASTA 2012 Corn & Sorghum and Soybean Seed Research Conference. There were representatives showing machines having to do with every kind of machine or technology in the seed industry. Representatives from most of the biggest companies in the industry came by the Oliver booth to see the latest innovations in the Voyager Gravity Separator and the new Fluid Bed Dryer. They seemed very impressed at the innovation and quality of our Oliver machines.

In addition, there were a couple of interesting things that happened while we were there that had nothing to do with the seed industry. First, Miss America 2011, Teresa Scanlon, gave a speech to the attendees then sat at a table to sign autographs and have her picture taken with people. Her table was set up right next to the Oliver booth! Therefore, when anyone had their picture taken with her they were going to see Oliver signs in the background.
Second, there was a drawing for a new I-Pad. The winner got her one raffle ticket from the Oliver booth!

Oliver had a very successful show and talked with more people than they ever have at a show. Brian, Jon, and Shane all agreed it was by far the busiest show they have ever attended! In the end everyone is sure that 2012 should be a very busy year for Oliver.

Oliver Manufacturing is now a proud member of The Asia and Pacific Seed Association (APSA).
According to the apsaseed.org website ASTA “was established in 1994, through the cooperation of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and DANIDA, with the aim of promoting quality seed production and marketing in the Asia and Pacific Region. Today, APSA is the largest regional seed association in the world. It has strong links with international organizations such as FAO, CGIAR institutions, ISF, ISTA, UPOV, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, among others. APSA members include national seed associations, government agencies, public and private seed companies, and associate members.”

Oliver is looking forward to developing our relationship with the other ASTA members throughout many of the Asian countries including Japan and China. In the future we hope to one day attend the annual Asian Seed Congress which is an international conference for seed exhibition and business for the entire global seed industry.

We are happy to announce that Oliver now offers used equipment for sale through our website. Simply go to the Our Products page on our website then click on Used Equipment. There you can look at photos and specifications of the list of refurbished processing machines offered directly from Oliver Manufacturing.
An Oliver brand machine always guarantees an exceptional product from our durable and reliable line of processing equipment. We sell used items ranging from gravity separation tables, destoners, fluidized bed dryers, or size right machines – all of them attaining the high standards of the Oliver name. Take advantage of buying directly from the Oliver folks who originally built these very machines.

Oliver Maufacturing would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our business partners who made 2011 such a successful year for us. 

Being a family owned and operated business, part of Oliver’s core values involve supporting our community and the people in it.  The employees that make up Team Oliver take personal pride in the work they do in providing the world with the finest products and services. 

During the Christmas and New Year Holiday season, Oliver observes a two week Holiday Break.  During this time all of Oliver’s employees will take time to enjoy their families.  Our offices will be closed December 23^rd through January 9^th.  We look forward to doing business with
you again soon.

From our family to yours we wish you a warm holiday season!

The Voyager Gravity Separator

At Oliver Manufacturing, we continually strive to keep our staff and agents informed about new products, along with innovative technologies.    We recently hosted a Distributor Training event, to give our agents on the spot training on our newest generation of Gravity Separators.

Watch the video below to see this sleek machine.  Voyager GVX105 – the first in our series of automated gravity separators!

This short video will demonstrate the Voyager in action, how quick and easy Deck Cleanout now becomes through Programmable Logic Controllers, and how its new touch screen control panel, memorizing up to 20 different routines, makes this machine “easier to control than any Smartphone”!

OLIVER VOYAGER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLC0oz_w3eA

For more information about the Voyager – contact our Rocky Ford office at 719-254-7813 or email us at contactus@olivermanufacturing.com

Wednesday, August 10th, President/CEO Brian Burney held a company meeting in Oliver’s manufacturing warehouse. Every employee attended the meeting, where Oliver’s executive managers made a presentation focusing on the direction of the company including Oliver’s mission statement and strategic plan which will provide the guidance for team decision making.    

Burney presents message to Team Oliver

Posing the question “what should we expect from doing things the same?” Burney proclaiming that “there’s been a lot of change in the last 81 years of business, we must challenge ourselves by setting goals and objective that will insure that change is worthwhile and growth is sustainable .”  

After analyzing the company’s mission statement, plans for growth and breaking down what they could do to uphold it, the employees got some hands-on time with the machines, ensuring that everyone was on the same page and up-to-date on how the newest models ran once they made it through the final quality testing. 

From left. Tim, Ricki, Justin, Brett, Tommy

One thing that customers of Oliver Manufacturing have been
less-than-overjoyed about over the years are the box filters on all of the
hicaps and maxi caps. The darn things are hell to take off, and are especially
unappealing to someone who doesn’t necessarily feel like taking them off in the
first place.

Flush filters are much easier to remove, and are done so much quicker than box filters.

Well, valued customers, this problem is a thing of the past! Convenience is now at your disposal with Oliver’s new flush filters, now being installed on every new hicap and maxi cap machine.

The old process of removing box filters was a slow-moving and annoying one. The new flush filters are removed much quicker, and as an added bonus, do not clumsily protrude from the side of machines as those former boxy ones did. The new flush filters fit smoothly against the machine, not rising at all past the hi/maxi caps surface.

The new flush filters don't pop off of the surface.Flush filters are much easier to remove, and are done so much quicker than box filters.

Oliver Manufacturing prides itself in being readily
available to lend a helping hand to its customers whenever a machine
unexpectedly conks out or training is necessary. The Oliver staff is regularly
sent out on field trips to train customers and check up on their machines.

The latest field trip was to Peters Seed in McCook,
Nebraska, to check up on Randy Peters and his employees, whom had installed two
Oliver 3600 Maxi-Caps a few weeks prior to Dave Knudsen’s (Engineering and
Customer Support) visit. Dave Knudsen has been a part of the density separator
industry since 1972, and has been with Oliver’s engineering department since
1981.

“The trip went well,” says Dave Knudsen. “The machines were
running smoothly.” The machines were doing their job quite well. Dave helped Randy Peters and co. integrate the dual Oliver 3600’s into the separation and
conditioning cycle already installed, which consisted of
a Cimbria Cleaner and four large Cimbria Indents. All of the machines needed to be running at speeds compatible with the others, so that a constant flow of product (in this case, wheat) would be moving through each machine.

All of the machines were quickly calibrated to suit each
other’s optimal running speeds, and samples of wheat were soon flowing through the system. “We were making a respectable separation with some great looking wheat and getting a 10% difference in weight between the Heavy and Rejects,” continues Dave. “. At one point they estimated that we were processing between 900-1000 bushels an hour. Not too bad for two 3600’s.”

The trip was a success, and overall just turned out to be
two more days on the job for veteran Dave Knudsen of Oliver Manufacturing.