Automatic Flour Mill
Evans first invention of widespread importance was an automated flour mill which operated continuously through the use of bulk material handling devices including bucket elevators, conveyor belts, and Archimedean screws. Evans described this invention in The Young Mill-wright and Millers' Guide. He patented this invention in a few states and, when the US patent system was established, in the federal patent system (Third U.S. Patent).
Evans' description of his fully automatic flour mill:
" These five machines…perform every necessary movement of the grain, and meal, from one part of the mill to another, and from one machine to another, through all the various operations, from the time the grain is emptied from the wagoner's bag….until completely manufactured into flour…without the aid of manual labor, excepting to set the different machines in motion."
The automatic flour mill was built ca. 1785 in Newcastle County, Delaware.
The Evans material handling system became widely used in flour mills and breweries during the 19th century.
David Hounshell (1984) acknowledged the influence of Evans'es automatic flour mill in the sequence of innovations leading up to the assembly line.
Read more about this topic: Oliver Evans
Famous quotes containing the words automatic, flour and/or mill:
“Predictions of the future are never anything but projections of present automatic processes and procedures, that is, of occurrences that are likely to come to pass if men do not act and if nothing unexpected happens; every action, for better or worse, and every accident necessarily destroys the whole pattern in whose frame the prediction moves and where it finds its evidence.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“But age, allas that al wol envenime,
Hath me biraft my beautee and my pith—
Lat go, farewel, the devel go therwith!
The flour is goon, ther is namore to telle:”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“The only power deserving the name is that of masses, and of governments while they make themselves the organ of the tendencies and instincts of masses.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)