Alliance® Rubber Company
February 6, 2020
Hot Springs, AR (February 6, 2020) – Alliance® Rubber Company is pleased to announce the launch of the first fully-tested and approved banding machine. This machine provides consistent application speeds which, in turn, eliminates the primary source of pain and swelling that banders experience after a day (or lifetime) of manual banding.
In the 50 years that Alliance® has been providing seafood solutions to the industry they’ve become very familiar with the extreme demands of the profession. While commercial fishing has adapted and changed in some ways over those 50 years, it continues to be a very physically demanding line of work.
About the Study: Musculoskeletal Disorders in Northeast Lobstermen
In 2017, a call to action was published in the study, “Musculoskeletal Disorders in Northeast Lobstermen” where researchers concluded that equipment or technology to assist material handling should be a priority.
From that point forward, Alliance® decided to focus its efforts on the development of a banding machine. After partnering with mechanical engineers, a machine was developed and tested in the most heavily fished areas of Canadian Lobster Fishing Districts LFA 33, 34, and 35, located around the southwestern shores of Nova Scotia. It was through this process that they were able to identify specific needs for different captains, vessels, and banders of all levels of expertise and geographically distinct lobster populations. The machine was tested and adapted to meet those needs and left behind with several boat captains over a 30-day testing period. As new challenges were faced and overcome, Alliance® benefitted from the generosity of the lobstermen and their communities which gave their time and offered their honest critique to help the R&D team meet those challenges.
Martin Collins, Captain of a lobster fishing vessel in LFA 35, was one of the captains that allowed Alliance® to test the bander on his vessel. According to Collins, “I normally rely on two guys to band the catches each season, but this time around they couldn’t make it. I had to hire a green bander at the last minute. He was an older guy, probably around 55 years-old, and because he had suffered from two torn rotator cuffs at some point in his life, he couldn’t lift the traps. To my surprise, he was able to single-handedly process 15,000 lbs. of lobster on this machine. At the end of the week, he didn’t have any ill-effects either. If it weren’t for this machine, it would have been very difficult to finish out the season.”
The complete process to develop both machine iterations took almost two years. Through the diligent work and persistence of the R&D team at Alliance®, as well as the numerous boat captains who opened up their operations to the team, these machines are finally available to the public.
For those interested in seeing a demo of the machine, please stop by booth 284 at the Seafood Expo North America or visit https://www.rubberband.com/products/140/lobster-banding-machine to watch a short 2 minute video about the product.
Read the study at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28951805
