Broadgrain

Leading Canadian-based global marketer
Broadgrain

BroadGrain Commodities Inc.

A leading Canadian-based global marketer and handler of
grains, oilseeds, by-products and specialty crops

Amid the growing challenges of securing quality agricultural products, BroadGrain is committed to connecting producers, processors and consumers of food and agricultural commodities around the world. BroadGrain employs more than 100 people and operates in almost every continent of the world. We facilitate shipping, handling, processing, storing, trading and marketing of grains, cereals, oilseeds, pulse and specialty crops and by-products.

A privately-held company, we are agile enough to move into new markets and meet evolving industry and clients needs. Over the past few years, we have continued to expand our product offerings and operational facilities to include a wide range of food grade products on top of our diversified grain and oilseed offerings.

Issue & Solution

Brief Description

This was a technically challenging project because of the extreme environment, distances, structural configuration and required visual coverage and acuity.

From a business perspective, placement, coverage, storage and video retrieval was needed. Reliability, functionality and accessibility was important. Event, error and storage notification was needed for quick response.

The Issue

Local management found it difficult to monitor the large facility footprint and staff complement effectively.

The goal was to leverage video technology to reduce uncertainty, better monitor operations and minimize operational errors. The use of video validation for commodity shipping and receiving was very important.

Theft, vandalism and health and safety were also considerations.

Technical issue:

The environment is a Class II, Division 1 Explosive Dust Area Environment. The dusty environment impacts the selection of devices. Camera concentration was greater in some buildings compared to other.

The area footprint is large with limited network connectivity between buildings. The overall environment is harsh being cold in the winter and hot in the summer (-40 to +40). The monitoring areas are large, diverse and spread out. Long term storage was required.

The Solution

The solution required a use of a variety of cameras including cameras to monitor 360 degrees for activity, cameras with specific focus point and cameras with external management capabilities for data sharing or device management.

Communications included wireless RF between buildings, various POE switches and remote access.

Long term storage required the implementation of a multi bay NAS

Products Used

Mobotix cameras were selected for the following reasons:

  • Armed and sealed tech cabling was used for this project.
  • Dust and explosive environmental conditions suggested Mobotix cameras would be best.
  • Extreme weather compatibility suggested Mobotix would be best since no housings or heaters are required.
  • Long distance camera runs suggested a low power consumption camera would be a good selection, Mobotix is an excellent fit.
  • For areas where 108 degree or 360 degree general fields of view was required, Mobotix Q25 and M25 cameras were used.
  • For detailed fields of view either single or dual lense cameras were used with with focal lengths and angles based on need.
  • Communication between distant buildings was provided using Ubiquity RF radios.
  • A QNAP NAS was selected for storage. Raid 5 with 12TB of storage provides 3-4 months HD recording per camera with the option to add cameras or double storage per camera.

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