Extrusion and Proper Cleaning
Extrusion is becoming an exciting business, especially in the part of the world where I come from – Nigeria. From my experiences in Nigeria, I have learned that entrepreneurs are always seeking to improve. In order to improve, entrepreneurs must make smart decisions at the proper timing. In most of the mills I have visited, wise choices are often being made. However, making these decisions at the right time, ensuring success, takes some helpful insight.
Something that has really caught my attention is the poor quality of raw soy in many of the plants that I have visited, as either stones or leaves were included intentionally during the bagging of raw soy or as a result of poor harvesting practices.
This result affects the final products after extrusion. In addition, it often wears out internal barrel assemblies such as screws, inlet chambers, mid-compression chambers, bullets and spacer washers.
Often these mills have cleaning systems that are quality but not effective, and in some cases I have noticed operators, in the process of trying to meet production targets, open the control guide on the destoners, which allows much of the stone and sand to continue along with the fine product into the hammer mill. These grinded stones are extruded along with the soy as the extrusion process starts in the extruder.
It is pertinent to note that money saved by failing to buy proper cleaning units and destoning machines will be spent on the purchase of spare parts. Each time money is spent replacing worn out parts, a lot of production hours are wasted and most importantly, low quality products are created.
The quality of raw soy differs from place to place, which is why we must apply a tactical approach at each time and place. The cleaning systems all must be checked periodically, whether they are working flawlessly or in immediate need of assistance.
Now go back to the basics, before extrusion happens, to destoning. With machines that have been cleaned properly, entrepreneurs now have saved a lot of money to purchase spare parts and above all, improved the quality of the end products.
If you find this task difficult, don’t hesitate to report back to Insta-Pro. Our interest is not only to sell our machines, but to help customers succeed with the machines they bought from us. Let’s start the proper cleaning today.
