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Jerry McCauley, a plant superintendent with Plote Construction, has seen a lot of changes over his nearly 36 years in the asphalt industry. Probably the greatest innovation McCauley has witnessed is automation technology for asphalt production.

"When I started with the company, we produced maybe three or four different types of mixes," he says. "Now there are hundreds of mixes built to do a particular job. More thought needs to go into what the mix is going to be used for. Quality control people need to get the recipe right -- and automation controls help them do that."

In fact, Plote, which owns four plants in Illinois, averages between 1.5 and 2 million tons of asphalt production a year. And McCauley says the company is greatly aided by the automated blending controls.

"Those controls are the brain of the operation," he explains. "They tell everything that is going on with that mix."

The total package

Today's automated controls consist of more than blending controls, however. Full plant controls provide complete control and monitoring of an entire facility on any type of plant. There are several benefits to automating your asphalt production facility, including:

• Complete control over mix
• Eliminating outdated push buttons
• Instant alarms minimize plant troubleshooting and downtime
• Increased productivity and efficiency