Whoever is in charge at the Osborn Farms grain center on any given day quickly knows what’s going on without climbing up bins or running to check switches and panels. By looking at a control board in the building that houses electrical controls, they know which systems are operating and how corn is moving.

That isn’t because Tom Osborn, wife Toni, son Doug and granddaughter Kinzie bought a piece of ready-to-go hardware. Instead, Neil Moseley, an employee, wired up the control board, complete with light indicators with different-colored bulbs.

Moseley hatched the idea to include a diagram on the control board representing different bins and components after the Osborns expanded the grain center, located in Stockwell, Ind., in 2021. It includes over 400,000 bushels of storage, a GSI TopDry drying system, wet holding bin, new dump pit and two grain legs. A newer, large grain leg handles wet corn, feeding the dryer, and the original grain leg carries dry corn from the TopDry bin to storage bins.

“I was looking for a way to better know what was happening in each bin at any one time,” Moseley explains. “We want to know which legs are operating and where the grain is going.”

He also wanted to know roughly how full each bin was at any one time. The control board with light indicators and control switches helps him accomplish those goals and more.

The hardest part was wiring up the indicators and switches, he says. Aligning everything correctly and wiring up the connections behind the control board, the parts you do not see, took several days.

“We have a system that works, and this helps us know what is happening out there without being at each spot to make visual observations,” Moseley says.