Lightle Sand and Construction is a family-owned aggregate processing business located in Hennessey, Okla., since 1954. The company mines and processes various types of sand and gravel, including concrete sand, mason sand, golf sand, pea gravel and native rock.
Case Studies
Challenge
When Lightle Sand was developing their new mine site, they needed a wet processing plant to make the sand products at their new location.
Plant Manager Clint Cooper said Lightle Sand shopped around for two or three years when they were thinking about building the new plant. They ultimately chose to work on the project with McLanahan because the company’s customer service went above and beyond their expectations.
“Our experience with McLanahan has been the best support. If I call them, they answer or like three people will call me back and start sending me text messages,” said Cooper. “That’s why we chose McLanahan was for the customer support.”
Solution
In 2019, Lightle Sand installed a McLanahan Classifying Tank Based Sand Plant that included two Hydrocyclones for desliming and dewatering the incoming feed to the Sand Classifying Tank and two Ultra Sand Plants for dewatering the final products. The Sand Classifying Tank features 11 stations for separating the various sand particle sizes as the feed slurry moves from one end of the tank to the other and successively finer material settles out. When the material in each station reaches a certain level, valves open to release the material into collecting flumes for blending the various particle sizes into Lightle Sand’s primary and secondary products.
The primary and secondary products are dewatered by the Dewatering Screens, which discharge a drip-free sand ready for immediate transport by conveyor belt. Water and any fine material passing through the Dewatering Screen fall into a Sump. A Pump then feeds the slurry to a Separator™, which recovers any product-sized fines back to the Dewatering Screen and into the product pile.
Lightle Sand also purchased McLanahan’s new InSpec® software for monitoring activity in their Sand Classifying Tank and controlling operations to provide desired sand specifications. The InSpec® software is an add-on to McLanahan’s standard Sand-Manager™ control system that allows the operator to visualize real-time production data and station activity. It features centralized calibration tools and PLC diagnostics to simplify system troubleshooting.
Cooper said the InSpec® helps Lightle Sand keep track of the fineness modulus values of their sand. Fineness modulus (FM) is a measure of how coarse or fine a material is. A higher FM value indicates a coarser aggregate, while a lower FM value indicates a finer aggregate.
“The McLanahan InSpec® program basically gives us live updates constantly on what our FMs are, which is a huge thing when our customers want the best concrete sand they can get,” said Cooper. “If we have any change in our pit or anything, we can adjust the FMs, that way we always have perfect concrete sand.”
Results
Lightle Sand is pleased with the McLanahan Classifying Tank Based Sand Plant, and Cooper said the equipment is working perfectly.
“The McLanahan Sand Plant has been awesome,” said Cooper. “Maintenance has been super easy. Everything that is just wear and tear that you have to change out, one person can do it. Every part or piece has little adjustments that you can do by yourself.”
Cooper has developed a great relationship with McLanahan, whose after-sales support continues through the life of the equipment.
“McLanahan always has awesome customer service, so if I have any questions at all, I call them and they answer the phone. It’s been awesome,” Cooper said.
With its modern graphical user interface and intuitive drop-down menus for site, tank and product configuration, Cooper’s favorite thing about the McLanahan sand plant is the InSpec® software.
“The McLanahan InSpec® machine makes running a sand plant 1,000% easier,” Cooper said. “It’s extremely, extremely easy to use. The hardest part is knowing a sand plant. Once you know what FMs are and your grades, your 30s, your 50s, the McLanahan InSpec® is about as easy as can be.
“It’s made my life so much easier.”
The InSpec® software has simplified Lightle Sand’s processes by reducing the amount of time and personnel needed to monitor the quality of their final sand products.
“Before we had the McLanahan InSpec® program, we had to take a hand sample every two hours, which took about 30 minutes,” Cooper shared. “It took like five or six people to constantly be on the FM. Now, it just takes me on a machine, and I can constantly see it all day.
“It’s been a complete game changer.”
