BIRD SEED MANUFACTURING:
Seed and Grains Batch Blending

A manufacturer of bird seed needed to accurately blend various seeds and grains together in order to produce the final bird seed blends that would be sent to packaging as a final product. The customer was batch blending the various ingredients and then storing the blended material in a bin for final packaging. The customer was having quality control issues with the various blends because the adjustments to flow rate and the batching of the various materials was all done manually. Some of the blend issues that the customer was experiencing were so bad that entire blends were deemed unusable and were discarded. The customer wanted to be able to control the flow rate of the individual materials as they emptied from their respective bins onto a mixing conveyor. They also wanted the batches of each product to be precise, so that the final blends were consistent and repeatable. The flow rate and batch size of the individual ingredients could change depending on the bird seed blend that they were making. Since each type of bird seed ingredient was stored in a separate silo, the customer wanted to be able to call forth a specific bird seed recipe and have the correct amount of each ingredient be dispensed from the silos, through a feed device and ultimately, onto a mixing conveyor that would blend the separate ingredients. The material would then be stored until needed for a production run of that bird seed blend. The feeder also needed to maintain its accuracy across the entire flow range without calibration or accuracy drift, regardless of the batch size.