Buhler installs new milling concept
installed two new high-tech roller mills at its Ravenstein plant
with the aim of producing poultry feed more efficiently. To carry
out the project, engineering firm Buhler took the
classical roller grinding process and effectively redesigned the
concept.
As a result, an entirely new roller mill was developed. The advantages, according to Buhler, are increased production, greater energy efficiency and improved flexibility.
Greater flexibility is achieved because each roll pair has its own separate drive. This ensures optimal flexibility and allows the rolls to be adjusted to suit the feed formula. Another new feature is the ease with which rolls can be exchanged. This, claims the company, now takes just a fraction of the time that it used to.
As a result the two grinding lines - consisting of two triple mills with automatic roll gap adjustment devices - achieve an hourly throughput of 60 metric tons each.
De Heus-Brokking-Koudijs also claims that the new system reduces the plant's energy requirement. The need to heat the end product has been eliminated, a process that also used to result in a loss of product.
Other important points to be considered in feed manufacture are hygiene, homogeneity, and high feed utilisation in the relatively short digestive tract of a chicken. Better digestibility translates into more vigorous poultry growth. Ultimately, this means a higher meat yield with table poultry or better eggs with layers for a given feed quantity.
The new production line from Buhler satisfies all the relevantsafety and hygiene.
De Heus-Brokking-Koudijs produces about 1.2 million metrictons of formulated feeds for pigs, dairy cattle, and poultry each year. The group operates eight factories in the Netherlands plus production sites in Poland and Egypt. The company's main export markets are the Near East and Eastern Europe.
De Heus-Brokking-Koudijs plans to expand its share of theDutch compound feed market, but has also identified importantopportunities for growth in the international marketplace, especially in Poland.
This is the latest in a number of mill projects recently carried out by Buhler. The company supplied two vertical hammer mills to an Australian feed mill earlier this month with the aim of achieving higher capacity.
The challenge of the project was that the installation required virtually no building modifications. The manufacturer, CopRice, had reached the limits of its grinding capacity in the feed mill it built only six years ago. The company however did not want to convert its existing building, but still wanted to increase production capacity.
As a result, two Vertica hammer mills were installed to replace the single-motor horizontal hammer mill without taking up more space. An additional benefit is the fact that the new grinding system also generates less noise than the former hammer mill, even when all four motors of the two Verticas are running during grinding.
