Experiences in Grain Inventory Measurement

By: Dennis Gardiner, Partner |  email

As you all are aware of by now, with OSHA’s increased oversight on grain bins, we have not been entering the bins as we have in the past. Even if we wanted to enter the bins, you have done a good job of recognizing the necessity of complying with the OSHA standards. Neither of us want an accident or a fine for violating the rules. They are not cheap.

Unfortunately, not entering a bin includes sticking our head into the hatch opening, as the rule is written. In some instances during this summer’s inventories, we were not allowed to walk on the grain in flat storage bins. Some clients would not allow us to use the rope-lifts on some of the older wood houses. In many cases we were given hard hats, safety goggles and bright colored vests to wear.

With these restrictions on our past measuring practices, our confidence in and precision of the measure is less than before. We will become more dependent on your location grain staff to assist us with the measuring. Therefore, your preparation in advance is more important than ever. It will make any measurement discrepancy issues easier to resolve if your staff have all bins measured in advance of our arrival. Additionally, flat storage facilities and quonsets could be drawn up, if you are comfortable doing this. We will place reliance on your staff to tell us how the grain is laying in the bin. That is to say, coned-up, coned-down, a particular slope, high side, low side, etc. This is nearly impossible to ascertain from 50-60 feet up when we can’t get on the ladder to look in or even stick our heads into the hatch opening.

Some suggestions we may make or work with you on in the coming year are:

• Putting more holes (measuring points) in the bins.
• Spray painting point of reference in flats. Or providing more of a schematic layout of the flat.
• Encouraging a better job of consolidating grain at year-end. Bin bottoms are the worst to measure!

With the restrictions, and considering the size of your organizations, now is a perfect time for you to develop good measuring skills and establish routine measurements, at least monthly. You will want to make sure that measures make sense from one month to the next and to our last measurement, or the examiner’s last measures. We would be available to assist in training your staff on measuring, developing these practices, or drafting grain measurement policies.

It seems to be a change in the times….but, perhaps it is time. These new bins are higher, wider and hold a lot more bushels than the bins of the past, creating an even more dangerous situation if someone were to become entrapped.

Have a safe and bountiful harvest!