HITCHDOC Hydraulic Snowblowers

AVANT FOR SNOW REMOVAL

Clear snow, salt surfaces and handle winter’s toughest jobs with the agility and ease of Avant multi-purpose articulated loaders and attachments. Stay safe and warm all winter long with heated cab options Avant’s compact size allows operators to fit on 48” sidewalks, making snow removal easier and more efficient Traffic kits containing headlamps, blinkers, reflectors, and a beacon are available Hydrostatic 4WD ensures reliable and efficient operation, even in the toughest conditions With more than 200 attachments, Avant loaders are year-round machines

DOZER BLADE ROTARY BROOM SNOW BLOWER ZOOM SNOW PLOW SNOW PLOW

AVANTTECNO.COM/US Purdue Develops SMART Platform With INDOT Funding

Purdue University civil engineers have developed a fully automated, portable system to estimate the volume of stockpiles of bulk supplies like salt and other materials used in industrial, highway and agricultural applications.

The Indiana Department of Transportation funded the research through its Joint Transportation Research Program. A paper about the innovation was published in the peer-reviewed journal Remote Sensing.

Stockpile management is important in roadway maintenance, which uses salt to deice roads to keep traffic flowing safely, and in other applications. Government agencies are increasingly interested in tracking stockpiles to assess their environmental impact, including effects on roadside vegetation and the salinity of surface water. Salt and sand also may affect pavement durability.

Jeremy McGuffey, statewide winter operations manager of INDOT, said the department has nearly 120 salt storage buildings around the state and that most locations visually estimate the volume.

“This is inherently incorrect and will vary from person to person,” McGuffey said. “If I pointed to a pile of stone on the ground, could another person accurately tell me the volume of that stone based on sight alone?

“There are a few locations that use survey equipment to take measurements based on the exterior size — the height and width — of the stockpile, but those don’t account for depth. Many of our buildings are full of salt year-round, and there is no way to reach the back side of the pile to determine how long it is.”

Traditional methods to measure stockpiles use field survey procedures that last several hours and expose surveying crews to dangerous conditions. Modern LiDAR technology — or light detection and ranging technology — is safer and more reliable, but its peak performance is confined to wellplanned scanning and complex data processing schemes when dealing with large indoor sites.

Salt monitoring and reporting technology, or SMART, was created by Ayman Habib, the Thomas A. Page professor of civil engineering, and Darcy Bullock, the Lyles Family professor of civil engineering, both of Purdue's Lyles School of Civil Engineering.

Habib said SMART integrates consumergrade sensing modalities of imaging and LiDAR units to acquire stockpile data in fewer than 10 minutes per facility, even in challenging environmental situations.

“SMART also uses an innovative dataprocessing strategy that can handle this data for accurate evaluation of stockpile volume as well as provide a visual record of the mapped facility in the form of colorized point clouds,” Habib said.

SMART is more precise, more costeffective and safer than traditional commercial technologies to estimate the volume of stockpiles of bulk materials.

“The technology estimates volume with less than 1 percent error and costs less than $10,000; existing technologies cost more than twice that,” Habib said. “It also allows for practical, quick and safe data acquisition. Some traditional technologies require an operator to climb the stockpile, which leads to extended and unsafe data acquisition.”

McGuffey said SMART has already brought positive results to INDOT.

“With the system we developed with Purdue, the empty dimensions of the building are solved for first, and then the salt pile’s volume can be easily calculated. The LiDAR system bounces light off the pile millions of times to collect the information we need to determine the volume,” McGuffey said. “The other huge plus is that this system is mostly automated with the only real human interaction being the initial install and then periodic cleaning.”

Habib and Bullock disclosed the information to the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization, which has applied for a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. For information about licensing opportunities, contact Dhananjay Sewak of OTC at dsewak@prf.org about 2021-HABI-69512.

Habib said the next steps in developing SMART are to package the system so it can be permanently mounted in a storage facility to allow for automated data collection, to strengthen its ability to work in storage facilities with domed rooftops, and to enhance the value of the data by driving colorized points.

For more information, visit stories.purdue.edu. 

HITCHDOC from page 79 which was addressed by eliminating the engine, gearbox and fuel tank, and improving balance, visibility and safety at transport speeds. Lesser noise pollution and no diesel emissions made it better for the environment and for use in public spaces.

HitchDoc also is known for the Dual Dozer which it has been manufacturing for more than 20 years. It features a dual-sided cutting edge and rearmounted casters so operators can push or pull material and grade in any direction. This saves the operator time while providing a smooth, level finish without leaving tracks that need to be smoothed over manually.

Behind every product offering is an effort to provide a solution to address pain points experienced by manufacturers. New products are engineered with quality improvements and work efficiencies keeping in mind customer and industry needs. Seeing the quality of Mohns’ work, HitchDoc’s Contract Manufacturing Division was first established in 1994. Between that and its own manufactured products, the company has upgraded its facilities several times in the last 30 years, now serving more than 10 industries and boasting more than 140 employees.

Despite the 2008 recession, HitchDoc management added product lines through acquisition and development. One such acquisition included bringing Kwik-Way Manufacturing in Sioux Falls, S.D., under its umbrella in 2016. That now serves as a secondary location for the company with 20 employees and has many fabrication capabilities available. It also allowed HitchDoc to quickly expand its product offering in the dirt works area. The Jackson facility houses flat lasers, flame/plasma cutting, tube lasers, welding, machining, forming, parts finishing, paint line and full product stocking and assembly lines. The company is quality certified ISO9001:2015 and environmentally certified ISO14001.

Even through the pandemic, HitchDoc has witnessed busy days. While there wasn’t a shutdown of operations, a slowdown was inevitable.

“Supply chain is the name of the game but as a company we were able to continue to move forward,” said Lund. “We don’t have a lot of need for chips so that hasn’t necessarily had an impact but other commonly used pieces, electronics, hydraulic supplies … everybody swipes for the same limited supplies out there.”

Confirmed product deliveries weren’t possible during that time.

“It’s hard to forecast or give customers a firm delivery date when your raw materials don’t have firm delivery dates. That’s been a challenge, but we’ve worked exceptionally hard with our suppliers and customers to keep our build schedule on track,” he added.

The snowbelt is where HitchDoc has a stronger, higher concentration of customers and dealers but the company has representation nationwide and internationally, including as far as New Zealand. Dealer training is typically hosted at the dealer location upon request and HitchDoc is looking to strengthen its presence in other parts of the country too as it builds up business for 2023 and beyond.

HitchDoc is participating at ConExpo-Con/AGG in Las Vegas in March 2023 and a variety of other shows throughout the year.

For more information, visit hitchdoc.com. 

HitchDoc photo Standard features include 7-gauge auger ribbon flighting with cutting edge; 14gauge blower shell with 12-gauge end plates; 270-degree hydraulic rotary chute with deflector; and 12-gauge fan housing with 7-gauge motor mount plate.

HitchDoc photo The snowblower does not have its own engine and is powered by the hydraulic system of the machine that it hooks on to instead of having a separate diesel engine.