There’s no question that agriculture is a challenging market in which to find workers. This is especially true of the Canadian seed and grain processing sector, which requires highly skilled operators that are in desperately short supply.
For those processors, performance and efficiency are critical. It’s essential they retain their existing operators and give them the tools they need to increase efficiency and productivity without sacrificing quality.
We’ve had many conversations over the years with people in the industry who’ve told us they need to find a better way of addressing skilled labour shortages. The ideal situation for many would be one where a highly skilled worker comes in and sets up a machine that a less skilled operator could then monitor.
We took those concerns to heart. That’s why Behst Machinery has partnered with Germany-based PETKUS, an award-winning company renowned for its top quality, state-of-the-art seed and grain processing technologies, including AI-assisted sorters that select seeds based on germination, vigor and plant health and soybean cleaning technology that uses sensor-tuned air velocity to eliminate all light materials dynamically.
I’ve been designing and creating food processing facilities and supplying equipment to the industry in Western Canada for more than 10 years and PETKUS’s innovative technologies are by far the best solutions I’ve run across. When I went to Germany to tour their facility, it was far and away the most advanced that I’ve ever seen in this industry. Their cutting-edge technologies give both operators and facilities a competitive edge by solving, at a minimum, their labour issues. As a bonus, facilities that already have highly skilled operators can juice their productivity.
We’ve started rolling this technology out to a few processors and already they’re telling us it’s exactly what they’ve needed for years. Not only does it address their labour concerns, but it also significantly reduces their downtime and increases their operational capacity.
I’ll give you an example of how. The screen changeover on one PETKUS air-screen seed cleaning machine takes about 70 per cent less time than it does on other competitive machines. If you’re a multi-commodity processor and you’re flipping back and forth between commodities or varieties, screen changeovers alone can greatly reduce your efficiency and productivity.
Let’s do some math. Say you only do two changeovers in a week, which is pretty conservative for most plants. On a typical competitive machine, each changeover takes about 45 minutes on average. That’s 90 minutes a week, which adds up to just shy of 5,000 minutes over 52 weeks of production. Reduce that by 70 per cent and you reap huge savings in time and labour and greatly reduce your overall costs. And we’re just talking about one air-screen machine here. If you have several in your plant, the benefits multiply.
That’s why we’re proud of our new partnership with PETKUS. It helps us to provide Canadian seed and grain processors with the innovative technologies they need to optimize their facilities by increasing their productivity and addressing labour shortages. You can take that to the bank.
