March 2, 2015
Kemin's MillSMARTTM: Close to the customer from start to finish
Much is known about Kemin being a multi-product feed additive company. Its MillSMART programme is also proving to be an industry benchmark for customised solutions along the entire feed-milling supply chain.
by CHAN Ngai Meng
As mentioned earlier in the introductory article to this Industry Feature section, feed milling technology has evolved to meet growing demands of the industry. With the MillSMART programme, Kemin aims to work with its customers to improve their quality, processing efficiency and feed safety.
MillSMART is a programme tailored to look after or improve the condition of a customer's feed material or product, anywhere from feed formulation, to delivery of complete feed to the farm gate.
In simpler terms, MillSMART can be summed up with three keywords -- quality, efficiency and safety across the feed milling process -- according to Dr. Liong Kah Heng, Marketing Director, Animal Nutrition and Health, Asia Pacific.
With regard to quality, MillSMART ensures the physical, chemical and biological stability of the raw materials like grains, animal proteins, oils and also that of the finished feed.
But for processing efficiency, the table below outlines the five key aspects of processing efficiency, and their reported benefits to the feed miller:
|
Aspect |
Benefits |
|
Feedstuff optimisation |
Eliminates feed shrinkage (i.e. loss of feed during the feed milling process) and optimises utilisation; reduces ingredient segregation and false intakes by the animal |
|
Process standardisation |
Limits or eliminates process fluctuations |
|
Product quality |
Homogeneous formulation and conditioning improves feed digestibility |
|
Energy consumption |
Diminishes specific energy spikes and reduces the carbon footprint |
|
Milling productivity |
Improves throughput which increases processing productivity |
"As to safety, the programme maintains the hygiene of the raw materials and feed product, keeping it pathogen-free all the way to the farm gate," elaborates Dr. K.V. Chandrasekar (Chandru), Commercial Sales Lead, Feed Technology Unit, Animal Nutrition and Health, Asia Pacific.
With increasing feed production across Asia and in order to focus on providing better, customised solutions for customers in feed milling, the Feed Technology Unit (FTU) was recently set up in January as a new business line for Kemin Asia Pacific operations.
According to Chandru, the FTU head, "Different customers have different needs. Some customers need to improve their process efficiency, while others need to maintain very high hygiene levels for their feed products, especially those who need to export to European countries and Japan with very strict feed safety regulations."
Interestingly there are also customers who have to transport their products from a feed mill to multiple farms and are particular about feed hygiene, as the long transportation process increases the risk of feed contamination. As such, Kemin has designed truck hygiene applicator systems to reduce the microbial load spreading through trucks.
Further on the aspect of efficiency of MillSMART, "There's a concept here that one must understand. Moisture in compound feed helps in the pelleting process, by binding ingredients together. However, our customers often face the problem of insufficient moisture in their feed."
"This is when Kemin's products can be added to help bind the ingredients together, which therefore reduces the energy consumed during the pelleting process, and improves efficiency."
During the Kemin Singapore factory visit, Steven Toh, Senior Product Application Manager, together with Dr. Liong and Dr. Chandru, demonstrated to eFeedLink how MillSMART reduces process fluctuations.
"Kemin MillSMART program is specifically tailor-made according to customers' level of needs and sophistication. One such application is to use a fully computerized on-line moisture control system that automatically detects and responds to moisture in feeds that are below the user-defined target. This helps feed mill's operator to produce more consistent moisture at the batch mixer resulting in consistency in conditioning, which results in stable TPH, PDI and lower energy consumption," Steven explains.
In comparison, some feed mills without MillSMART are still seen to analyse their feed product only after a batch is produced. In other words, feed analysis is not real-time unlike in MillSMART, hence MillSMART can minimise costly batch rejects for the feed miller.
Accordingly, perhaps MillSMART can be best summed up as a custom-made, packaged solution that addresses quality, processing efficiency and safety needs of raw materials and finished feed of the entire feed milling process.
