The special story topic of this month is “Contribution of Feed Technologies to Sustainable Feed Production”. But what does the staff shortage have to do with it? It is very simple… The sustainability of your feed mill and production is possible as long as it operates at full capacity 24/7 in accordance with the purpose of its installation. For this, you need a competent team that will work 24/7. But who knows, maybe there isn’t… Wayne Cooper, Feed Mill and Machinery Expert from Anderson Feed Technology, explains the matter with a nice practical example.
Feed Mill and Machinery Expert
Anderson Feed Technology
If you haven’t noticed, we have a staffing shortage. Yeah, I know. Big news, right. Everyone is short on people. No night shift. Day shift that is understaffed. Mills designed to run 24/7 but nobody will operate that weekend or late night time frame. So I won’t detail that any further. The question is “What are you doing about it?”
We work with a few clients who are ahead of the curve on this. One in particular stands out from all the rest. With a 1980’s steel structure mill, they were operating at 400 to 500 tons per day with a staff of 4 people per shift. The mixer cycle was a bit slow. The micro system could not keep up. A few but not too many hand adds. Operations took 16, sometimes 18 hours a day. Trucking did not seem to be an issue as they had and still have a good staff of experienced drivers. Working in the mill was a bit dingy because the lighting was old. A bit dusty with a few leaks around the minerals added to the major scale. The building itself was structurally sound.
The management decided to get very aggressive about the issue. The customer base was growing and new livestock is still moving to the area. They grew the mixer tons by adding a minor scale and a larger micro system with an extra scale. No more hand adds and a <3.5 minute mixer cycle. The dust issues are controlled with a new mineral scale and proper vent systems. Upgraded the control system and eliminated dead times in the batching. They can now operate the system with an IPad from anywhere in the mill or even from home.
Staffing: The mill now has two people operating the feed manufacturing. Neither of them sits in the office to watch the automation make feed. I have talked about the robot feed mill and this company is using one. They set up production and go do maintenance, receiving, and feed the robot while it works.
Your rebuttal: But automation takes money! Yes. It does. Money well spent. The mill now makes 700 tons daily with a proud record of just over 900. The hours per day are down slightly to 12 to 14 hours using an overlapping shift. A good estimate is that they spent $600,000 to $750,000 on the upgrades. And eliminated 4 salaries while increasing tons. You can probably calculate the ROI.
By the way, this all kicked off with a good mill evaluation. Thanks for reading, see you next time!
About Wayne Cooper
Wayne Cooper operated and supervised feed mills in Iowa for 23 years before taking on the job of Director of Feed Technology for the Cherkizovo Group, Russia’s largest feed manufacturer. This production had an extreme focus on pelleting as every ton from all seven mills was pelleted. Those years allowed him to see an international version of the feed industry and the technology on both sides of the Atlantic. His problem solving experience is now used to optimize feed mill production for the clients of Anderson Feed Technology.
