Plantas Concentrados

Feed Mill Efficiency
Published on: 05/08/2012
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Author : Kim B. Koch, PhD (Northern Crops Institute – North Dakota State University, USA)
"You cannot improve what you do not control. You cannot control what you do not measure. You cannot measure what you do not define". (anonymous)
It is very difficult to know where to begin a discussion about feed mill efficiency. Perhaps a goodplace to start would be a definition of efficiency. The Encarta Dictionary: English (North America) defines efficiency as 1. Competence, the ability to do something well or achieve a desired result without wasted energy or effort. 2. Productive use of resources, the degree to which something is done well or without wasted energy. 3. Measure of a machine´s energy effectiveness, the ratio of the amountof energy used by a machine to the amount of work done by it. I believe each of these has a place in defining feed mill efficiency. If a feed manufacturer is concerned about ingredient, energy, equipment, and labor efficiency then the following must be taken into account.
I tell my students that there are three primary goals of animal feed production: greater nutrient utilization, increasedanimal performance, optimized resource use. Animal feed can be divided into five main categories: poultry, swine, beef, dairy, and aquaculture; and these can be further subdivided into several classifications: animals that supply meat-milk-eggs, and animals for reproduction (breeders). The users of animal feed expect that it is nutritionally complete, delivers desired animal performance, and is safefor animals and humans. The ultimate end-users of animal feed are the people who buy and consume animal products. This link is often overlooked by feed manufacturers.
There is no doubt that feed manufacturers are concerned about their Cost of Goods Produced and want to improve upon it. From a strictly selfish viewpoint improvement increases profit margin. From an unselfish viewpoint improvementlowers overall animal production costs and relieves some of the pressure on the cost of meat, milk and eggs. The most significant factor contributing to the Cost of Goods Produced for feed manufacturers is ingredient cost; including shipping, receiving, transfer and storage. An example would be the cost increases for maize and soy bean meal during the past year. In North Dakota (ND) we have seenincreases of 45% and 51% respectively.
Before any improvement can be achieved the feed manufacturer must gain control. To do that he must define and measure what he wants to control. Behnke (2007) gave the following example in which he demonstrated the "cost" of the almost universal practice of over-formulating to compensate for nutrient variation (Figure 1). The nutrient requirements of animals arebased on age, body weight and reproductive state. Nutritionists use over- formulation to protect against nutrient deficiency from ingredient variation, inaccuracies in proportioning and mixing, or a loss of uniformity during transfer and shipping. One way to lower the Cost of Goods Produced is to "satisfy the dietary needs of the animal without feeding excess nutrients". In his example Behnke usedthe cost of soybean meal as the ´standard´ for the cost of protein in a diet. For mid March 2008 in ND that price was $381/mt. With a protein content of .475% the price for protein was $802.10/mt. The model assumed that that the average protein content of all feeds produced was 18%; each feed was over-formulated by 0.2% protein, production was 400,000 tons/yr (8,000 tons/week x 50 weeks); soextra protein use was 800 tons (400,000 x .002) at a cost of $641,680 (800 tons x $802.10/ton). Substantial savings can be realized by taking control of the situation and decreasing or eliminating the practice of over-formulation (Figure 2). How to gain control of ingredient costs? Behnke suggested a three step plan. First, the quality assurance department should increase sampling frequency, reduce...