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.

Oliver’s own Brian and Adam Burney take to the beaches early Sunday morning to
participate in the Gary Arthur Memorial 5K Fun Run/Walk. A bit of possible sibling
rivalry sparks as we see Brian striving for first place (above). Brian ends up taking the race (or, Fun Run, rather) with Adam following in fifth. No official times were recorded.

The Fun Run was held during ASTA’s 128^th annual convention at the Hyatt
Regency on Huntington Beach, California. The Fun Runners were treated to
less-than-expected temperatures (c’mon, it’s CALI!) Sunday morning, but they
ran (and walked) nonetheless!

Here we can see ASTA’s 5K participants,
smiling in excitement!

Tom stands with the Voyager Gravity Separator

We recently attended the Specialty Coffee Association of America trade show in Houston, Texas. We featured our fully automated Voyager (GVX1020) Gravity Separator, which demonstrated how Oliver is Advancing the Science of Separation. The Voyager and our new Maxi-Cap Platinum are two of the most innovative gravity separators on the market today.
Both machines add consistent reliability and durability into the mix with automation features including power controls, PLC memorized set ups, automated cleanout and full plant integration. This type of separation can positively impact the appearance and value of any grade of coffee that is processed.
We were extremely pleased to see a continuous line of people at the trade show, waiting to speak with us about the tremendous opportunities that our line of automated gravity separators can offer. Thanks to the SCAA for a great trade show!
For more information on how our separators can positively affect your coffee bean harvest, go to www.olivermanufacturing.com/coffee

As part of Oliver’s constant improvement program, we are now offering a new Rock Trap Hopper for both Maxi-Cap and Hi-Cap gravity separators. We bolted a Voyager-style hopper onto our Platinum Maxi-Cap and after testing found it worked great. The new hopper will be standard equipment, along with Flush Fit Filters and Deck Modifications, starting on 4/10/11 with the model 4800PL. This will allow easier and cleaner routing of any material removed through the rock trap gate.

As always, most of the upgrades we introduce are designed to be backward compatible for many Oliver machines already in use. Contact us to find out if they apply to yours.

Oliver has a series of parts upgrades in testing for eventual use in many of our production machines. These range from improved bearing brackets to hinges and filter designs, each being testing currently on one of our lab separators. Lab machinery is a good test platform because they are in use nearly constantly, often for participants in our Prove It challenge, and sometimes on non-traditional materials. 

 Here’s a list of what is in beta at this point: 

•  Stronger, Eccentric Bearing Brackets with improved design and more efficient manufacturing
• Maxi-Cap style Take Up Bearings for the eccentric assembly (to replace the HEC201 and its associated bracket)
• 10 ga. formed Fan Shaft Bearing Brackets
• Blender eccentric Take Up Bearing And Pushrod
• Revised Jack Screw assembly for easier deck end raise
• Computer manufactured Boxes, Tilt Linkages and Equalizer Hinge Linkages
• Flush Fit Filters

 Other upgrades we have in the works include new Outward Opening High Side Gates for rapid heavy product discharge, and Corner Cutoff Boards, for improved material distribution, both specifically for the Maxi Cap Gravity Separator. 

 Constant improvement is Oliver’s long-term policy; these machines do shake for a living, after all. If innovations make a difference in the lab in terms of longevity and performance, expect to see them implemented across the spectrum of production Oliver machinery. Many may be backward compatible with a number of machines in the field.  Stay tuned to see which of these can be retrofit to yours. 

Eccentric Bearing Bracket

Take Up Bearing & Pushrod