SGM Magnetics - Investment Capital

Throughout 2007, Ken Siegel at CRG Metals, Spartanburg, S.C., has watched equipment supplied by SGM Magnetics harvest greater amounts of metal from the company’s high-output auto shredding plant.

Ken and his fellow managers have done more than watch, however, as they have also decided to increase the percentage of CRG’s capital spending that goes toward the magnets, sensors and sorters made by SGM.

At its Spartanburg shredding plant, CRG has lined up an impressive array of sorting equipment. "At this facility we have two 40-inch fines lines and two 60-inch fines lines," says Ken. Each line consists of a DSRP and an eddy current followed by an induction sensor sorting unit.

The ultra-strong DSRP magnets made by SGM "strip out any residual ferrous left in the fluff," notes Ken. "The eddy currents then become more effective without that ferrous portion in the stream," he adds. "Those ferrous pieces can stick to the drum, reducing the effectiveness of the eddy current, but SGM has designed the DSRP to alleviate those problems."

Ken also praises the induction sorters made by SGM. "They do a much better job in recovering smaller metal pieces and fractions than other models we looked at," he notes.

The end result is that CRG has seen "a 3 to 4 percent increase in our overall recovery from our fluff," says Ken. "The overwhelming portion of that is in the small material; previously, we had not recovered that out of our product."

While the DSRPs have recovered additional ferrous scrap, the SGM eddy currents and the induction sorters have increased the company’s recovery of both white and red nonferrous metals, notes Ken.

"We have recently merged with Atlantic Scrap, and our new partners have seen the improvements we have achieved and have decided to install a system that is almost a duplicate of what we have," Ken remarks.

At the Atlantic Scrap plant in Smithfield, N.C., the plan is to outfit the downstream system exclusively with SGM units. "As we have partnered up, the managers at Atlantic have seen things in our system that they want to replicate, so they elected to go with a complete SGM system," says Ken.

"It has definitely been a great experience working with the group from SGM," adds Ken. "They have been extremely supportive and the equipment they have provided has certainly exceeded our expectations."