WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM?
Our customer, a manufacturer of poultry and ruminant feed, needed to increase the throughput and productivity of their mill in North Wales.
Firstly, the raw materials intake receiving system needed upgrading to receive bulk vehicle deliveries at a rate of up to180 tonnes per hour in a new purpose-built facility. The system they had could only run at a rate of 90tph.
Secondly their weighing system needed upgrading to give more flexibility and speed up the weighing process.
We were contracted to design, manufacture and install the new equipment, working closely with the client’s team.
WHAT WAS OUR SOLUTION?
Our engineers completed a number of complex site surveys, in conjunction with proposed new building plans to help expand their mill.
Working closely with the customer, architects and building manufacturer, we designed the full process from start to finish, ensuring that the building supplied was suitable to accept and fit the new machinery requirements.
With the aid of our 2D Autocad & 3D Inventor modelling software, we were able to produce accurate drawings for all the machinery and components required.
We then manufactured and supplied the following components:
- Intake booth, bifurcated hopper & double screw discharge.
- Two large Belt & bucket elevators
- Two large transfer conveyors to the existing silos, complete with outlet slide valves.
- Dust extraction system for the intake booth
- All the interconnecting chute-work
- A rotary drum magnet to remove potential foreign bodies from the product during the intake transfer process to the storage silos.
The new raw material intake system is setup at 160 tph, intaking at an additional 75% increase on the existing 90tph system. This allows a 27 tonne vehicle to complete its delivery, from arrival to departure in just 14 minutes. Combined with the customers original system, they can receive around 900 tonnes per day on site.
As a second project, we then supplied a second 6000L weighing system and transfer routes from the customer’s existing silos, which delivered weighed materials directly to the existing pre-grinder storage bins at a rate of 75-80 tonnes per.
We added outlets to the silo hoppers, with rack and pinion isolation slides and dischargers to give a secondary route to the new weigher.
For this we manufactured and supplied the following components:
- Rack & pinion isolation slides
- Five heavy duty tubular augers
- 6000L weigher, complete with bomb door discharge arrangement
- Four heavy duty single chain conveyors
- A belt & bucket elevator
- All the interconnecting chute-work
As the customer now has 2 weighing facilities, they can now weigh different material for the same batch simultaneously, reducing the weighment cycle time & ensuring the pre grind bins are filled promptly, increasing productivity of their animal feed mill.
Over the course of a year, we communicated with the customer and managed the whole project including project specific method statements and risk assessments generated by our internal project management team.
During manufacturing, all the products were protected against internal flighting and external corrosion providing a long-term sustainable solution.
THE RESULT
Working with the customer and the design team meant we were able to collaborate successfully, and together we achieved effective solutions for their feed mill challenges.
Overall the new building, including upgrading and installation of our plant and machinery, helped to increase the rate of flow through the feed mill from start to finish, increasing productivity and efficiency.
Since the recent upgrade, the customer has achieved record production at that site, producing 818 tonnes of pelleted products in a 24 hour period.
