b'PARTNER CONTENTSolving Labour Shortages Through Innovative TechnologiesBy Chance Barkley, Senior Partner & CEO Behst MachineryT heres 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. Its essential they retain their existing operators and give them the tools they need to increase efficiency and productivity without sacrificing quality.Weve had many conversations over the years with people in the industry whove 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. Thats 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.Ive been designing and creating food processing facilities and supplying equipment to the industry in Western Canada for moreLeft to right: Burghard Petersen (Petkus), Chance Barkley (Behst),than 10 years and PETKUSs innovative technologies are by far theMark Scholze (Petkus), Jeff Young (Behst).best solutions Ive run across. When I went to Germany to tour their facility, it was far and away the most advanced that Ive ever seen in this industry. Their cutting-edge technologies give both opera-tors and facilities a competitive edge by solving, at a minimum,Lets do some math. Say you only do two changeovers in a their labour issues. As a bonus, facilities that already have highlyweek, which is pretty conservative for most plants. On a typical skilled operators can juice their productivity.competitive machine, each changeover takes about 45 minutes Weve started rolling this technology out to a few processorson average. Thats 90 minutes a week, which adds up to just shy and already theyre telling us its exactly what theyve needed forof 5,000 minutes over 52 weeks of production. Reduce that by 70 years. Not only does it address their labour concerns, but it alsoper cent and you reap huge savings in time and labour and greatly significantly reduces their downtime and increases their opera- reduce your overall costs. And were just talking about one air-tional capacity.screen machine here. If you have several in your plant, the benefits Ill give you an example of how. The screen changeover onmultiply.one PETKUS air-screen seed cleaning machine takes about 70 perThats why were proud of our new partnership with PETKUS. It cent less time than it does on other competitive machines. If yourehelps us to provide Canadian seed and grain processors with the a multi-commodity processor and youre flipping back and forthinnovative technologies they need to optimize their facilities by between commodities or varieties, screen changeovers alone canincreasing their productivity and addressing labour shortages. You greatly reduce your efficiency and productivity.can take that to the bank.36 SEEDWORLD.COM/CANADASEPTEMBER 2024'