How a feed mill increased production and saved money.
A dairy feed pellet manufacturer in Finland was able to increase production and save money by integrating one of our Holmen NHP300 pellet durability testers into their production line. The NHP300 automatically collected samples with an in-line sampler and tested the pellets after the pellet press, before the cooler. By testing at this point in the process, the manufacturer was able to make adjustments early if the PDI was not right, potentially saving them time, energy and wastage.
Before using the Holmen NHP300, the mill had been batch testing every 9 tonnes and producing 9 tonnes of pellets every hour with a PDI of 96. The mills’ target PDI was 92-96, judged on the pellet quality that their customers would accept. This meant they were producing pellets to the highest quality acceptable.
After using the Holmen NHP300 to automatically sample every 4 minutes and track the results, they were able to speed up the mill to produce pellets with a PDI of 92 (still acceptable to them and their customers). At this increased speed, they were able to produce 12 tonnes of pellets per hour.
By producing an extra 3 tonnes per hour, they were able to meet orders quicker, reduce energy used per tonne, reduce labour time and avoid rejecting pellets at the very end when it was too late.
For further reading on this topic, we can recommend the follow detailed article:
Article: – Pellet quality in a compound feed factory – Thoughts from Feed Design Lab
