In the past five years the cost of ingredients and many feed additives has risen significantly. However, many feed companies within the Asia Pacific region still do not maintain tight control on stock inventory, scale tolerances and the volume of recycled fines and rework arising from inefficient production processes and equipment.

1. Digital Re-print September | October 2013
The holistic approach to avoid
losses in the feed mill
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3. FEATURE
The holistic approach to avoid
losses in the feed mill
by Yiannis Christodoulou, president, Agentis Innovations, Thailand
I
n the past five years the cost of
ingredients and many feed additives
has
risen
significantly.
However, many feed companies within
the Asia Pacific region still do not maintain
tight control on stock inventory, scale tolerances and the volume of recycled fines and
rework arising from inefficient production
processes and equipment.
This lack of control should be considered
unsustainable and the aim of this paper is to
highlight some of the common areas where
waste and losses occur and what steps can
be taken to improve so that feed companies
remain competitive.
For the purpose of this paper, we are
going to consider a typical feed mill from the
region, that receives bag and bulk tip raw
materials and ingredients, stores corn in silos
before transfer to the feed mill for grinding
and blending and has a meal and pelleting
line for production of final feeds in either
packing silos or bulk silos.
Raw material receiving
In the Asia Pacific region, many companies still rely heavily on bags and less in bulk
for the receiving of ingredients. In either case
it is common to see numerous trucks lined
up either inside or outside the mill waiting
to unload.
This creates a number of challenges in
terms of maintaining control of trucks and
personnel while on site and ensuring the
correct quantity and type of product are
unloaded.
Manual systems that rely on paperwork
are prone to human errors. To counter
this, automation systems can be installed
that replace the paperwork and ensure the
movement of trucks and ingredients to the
10 | September - october 2013
correct location for discharge as well as
provide for accurate stock inventory and
traceability.
Raw material unloading
Control of the unloading of raw materials is important to avoid waste. Waste can
occur from a number of errors for both bags
and bulk. For bulk intakes, errors can result
in expensive losses due to incorrect manual
silo selection or failure to recognise a silo is
full. This represents both financial loss as well
as nutritional loss due to mixing of different
ingredients.
Programmable Logic Control Units (PLC)
in conjunction with adequate and appropriate instrumentation and software can eliminate this type of error through automatic
route control and high level silo indicators
to show when silos are full. Technology also
provides sophisticated bag counters on the
unloading conveyors which provide accurate
real time stock inventory.
Bag unloading can be inaccurate in terms
of ensuring the correct number of bags are
unloaded at the correct point. Technology
now provides sophisticated bag counters on
the unloading conveyors which are difficult
to de-fraud and again provide real-time stock
inventory.
Grain silos and drying
Often the quantity of grains discharged
into and out of silos is not known accurately
due to the lack of a weigh scale hopper or
in-flight conveyor weighing systems resulting in inaccurate stock reconciliation when
transferred to the mill. The most common
causes of loss are either wastage due to
poor silo management or losses due to
moisture shrinkage.
Silo management to prevent grain dete-
rioration is a subject in itself and is a particular challenge in Asia Pacific region because
of the need to take in grains at harvest and
store for long periods of time.
It is not uncommon to hear of significant
volumes of grains being disposed of because
they are unfit for purpose when emptying
the silos. The other risk is the deterioration
due to mycotoxin/bacterial contamination
that often occurs due to long-term storage
and which can result in significant nutritional
losses.
New in-line microwave moisture sensor
technology is being utilised to provide real
time information as grains either enter or
leave the storage silos and are transferred
into the feed mill, thereby providing valuable
information to assess the total moisture
loss from intake through to the mill storage
phase. This will allow the operators to make
adjustments based on the real moisture content of the formulated mixture or additional
moisture addition, at the mixer or conditioning phase.
Grinding
Losses occur at this process step due to
the physical effect of grinding on moisture
levels. Automating the control of the grinders is one method to optimise throughput
and reduce energy costs as well as reduce
the moisture loss associated with excessive
grinding.
Batch control
The weigh scale system is often associated with losses due to excessive tolerances and lack of in-flight material control.
Clearly these losses are significant when
you consider microscale weighers and
the value of the products that are being
weighed. Modern, appropriately sized, mul-
&feed millinG technoloGy
Grain

4. FEATURE
tiple batch-weigh scales and digital PLC
controls should provide an accuracy of 0.5
percent or less.
Hand additions and premix
addition
The losses that can occur at this stage are
significant because of the impact of putting
the wrong additive into the wrong feed type,
or the impact of under or over dosing.
The most effective method to reduce
the risk of errors is to automate the process
using either barcoding or weigh stations or a
combination of both. This has the advantage
of providing complete traceability which can
also limit losses if an error does occur.
Flush batching
In many feed mills there is a requirement
to flush or purge the mixer and pelleting
lines to avoid carryover of specific materials
or feed additives, coccidiostats and medicines.
The method of how the mixer and pellet
lines are flushed will impact how much loss
is associated with this process. Mixer flushing is usually done using a defined quantity
of raw material such as corn, which is then
re-routed back to a nominated silo for
inclusion into specified feed types. Each flush
batch represents cost in terms of mixer time,
energy consumption and potential losses
associated with the re-circulation system.
Therefore, it is
important to optimise
the scheduling/production planning to ensure
the flush process is only
used where there is no
alternative. This can be
achieved most effectively through PLC control
which can prevent cross
contamination scheduling and programme the
flush batch automatically
before a sensitive feed
type.
The pelleting lines may also require flushing and this again will impact significantly on
production cost.
Some feed mills run the same feed
material used for the mixer flush through
to bulk or packing silos. This is certainly
wasteful because of the time involved and
the manpower required to pack or transport
the rework back to the raw material silos
or intake.
Some feed companies use a specified
quantity of the first batch of feed, following
the coccidiostat or medicine, and run this
through the line and recirculate as rework.
Once again this is wasteful not only for the
reasons already listed, but because each
time you reprocess feed there will be some
deterioration in some of the heat sensitive
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A more efficient flush procedure is to be
able to use the flush batch as final feed. This
can be done by either removing the coccidiostat or medicine in the final batch but adding this to the existing feed on the basis that
when mixed with the original batches it will
only represent a minor dilution. Once again
the PLC pelleting control can control the
routing of different feed types to each pellet
line and ensure a flush is created before the
next sensitive feed type.
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pelleting and conditioning represent one of the
most wasteful areas in terms of energy, blockage
downtime and reprocessed feeds. The major
limiting factors are manual control and poor
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consumption by more than 40 percent in
some cases as well as improve the productive
life of pellet die and rolls and prevent blockage and cleanout times. Automation removes
the manual variability that leads to suboptimal
steam conditioning and power settings resulting in variable pellet quality, which in turn
results in a higher level of returns from the
sieves. This is particularly important when
producing crumbs because in some feed
mills sieve return levels of 30 percent are
not uncommon which is extremely wasteful
as well as resulting in feed being reprocessed
three or four times.
Automated pellet control therefore results
in a significantly lower level of returns from the
sieves, reduced down time and blockages and
efficient scheduling of flush batches.
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and variable pellet quality leading to further rework
and waste.
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513459_GrainFeed_47x270_gb_4c_RZ.indd 126.03.13 11:19
There are two losses associated with the
cooling process. One is the dust and fines that
can be lost from the air ducting due to incorrect
set up and fan speeds, and the second are the
losses associated with moisture loss.
New technology to reduce moisture loss
during the cooling process is now available to
the industry. This technology is specifically developed to provide vital information to a PLC in
order to perform real-time control of a number
of parameters that influence moisture loss.
Sieving
Poor pellet quality leads to an increase in
fines and dust for rework which incurs losses.
The ‘throughs’ of the sieves, at all settings, should
wherever possible be routed back to the pelleting process for immediate reprocessing without
the need for any intermediate storage or manual
handling.
Mills that have particularly long conveyor
or elevator handling systems, or fall from the
highest point (usually distributor head) also
result in greater damage to pellets (or segregation of coarse and fine material in mash feeds)
and hence dust. Sieves can be programmed to
switch off when producing medicated feeds to
avoid recirculation of medicated dust back to
the pellet silos.
Bulk finished feed storage and
packing
Errors arising from placing the wrong product
in the wrong silo or placing the product in a silo
which is not empty can be avoided by implementing automated route control, fixed silos
and high/low level indicators to provide accurate
record of how much feed is in each silo.
The other challenge is accurate data about
the number of bags packed and sent to the
warehouse. Weighing systems and bag counting
technology can provide the necessary solution so
that management personel are able to log the
productivity of each packing line.
Bulk truck loading
The control of trucks entering the mill and
loading procedure can be automated to avoid
human errors and provide real time stock inventory and traceability. Modern bar coding technology or computer input screens can remove
the element of human errors and avoid having
drivers operate the loading system.
Bag loading
In Asia Pacific this represents a real challenge
because of the confusion that can occur from
having multi loading belts and different products
to load. The primary concern is inventory control
to ensure the correct product type and quantity
has been loaded. This can be most achieved by
utilising scanning and bag counting technology.
Plant maintenance
How many feed mills measure the amount
of waste each month? An effective automated
preventative plant maintenance plan can significantly impact the level of waste from leaks and
blockages.
Summary
A lack of adequate waste control should
be considered unsustainable if feed companies
wish to remain competitive. Losses through
moisture loss, inadequate waste control, accuracy of production or time management are
not acceptable. Technology is available that can
improve all of these factors and also provide
valuable real-time stock control from intake
to loading and full traceability from supplier
to farm.
Agentis Innovations is a specialist in providing and developing technologies that automate
manufacturing processes and integrate data
collection for the global agricultural industry
which include animal feed, aquafeed, pet food,
and premixes.
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Website: www.agentisinnovations.com
&feed millinG technoloGy
Grain

6. FEATURE
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September - October 2013
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first published in 1891
•
The holistic
approach to avoid
losses in the feed
mill
In this issue:
•
•
Sieving
technology in
feed pellet
production
•
Mixed integer
optimization:
Traceability
a new risk in maize
production?
• See the full issue
•
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•
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•
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•
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