For poultry production plants with temperature-critical processes, this becomes an even bigger issue. In addition to creating an uncomfortable atmosphere for workers, the presence of excess heat or cold can put the product at risk. If a high energy bill isn’t enough to make you reconsider your plant’s weather preparedness, the potential for lost sales and recalls certainly should be.

Whether for the winter freeze or the summer heatwave, read on for some important things to consider when prepping your plant.

Cold Weather

Doors and Windows

The best way to save money on heating is to ensure that the heat you’re paying for only heats the facility, nothing outside it. Every door or window throughout your facility that doesn’t close properly presents an area where warm air can escape and cold air can enter, along with rain, snow, dirt, and other contaminants, wasting energy and making a mess.

Both for quality concerns and your heating bill, make sure every door or window opens and closes as it should, and that all cracks or openings in windows have been sealed. Consider investing in adhesive foam weather stripping or a commercial-grade window insulator kit.

Insulation

While doors and windows are generally the biggest areas for heat loss in a given facility, they’re not the only areas of consideration. Any crack, tear, or hole in your facility’s walls presents an area that cold air can get in, mitigating the warm air you’re paying for and making your heaters work that much harder to compensate.

Good insulation is the key. Beyond a lower energy bill and a smaller environmental footprint, proper insulation will also limit the plant’s acoustic impact and make it more sustainable overall. Be sure to thoroughly inspect the entire plant for any potential problem areas, and have any gaps professionally sealed as quickly as possible.

Roofing

In addition to the walls around you, you’ll also need to ensure that the roof around you is free of any leaks or problem areas that might create complications due to cold weather. Roof leaks can be caused by any number of factors, and every leak presents huge potential for damage to the products, equipment, and people inside your plant.

For the best protection, have your business’s roof inspected twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring, by a licensed and certified roofing professional.

Heating System

After you’ve gone over the plant to ensure heat has no avenues of escape, it’s time to take a look at your heating system itself.

When inspecting your plant, inspect your heating system thoroughly to confirm that it is up to date and working as intended. This includes checking that all pipes are functioning correctly and are free of any leaks, ensuring that all traps are closing properly, and conducting routine inspections of the entire system throughout the year to keep it working at maximum efficiency.

Warm Weather

Doors and Windows

Just as doors and windows provide an entry point for cold air during winter, they can also be an entry point for warm air during summer. However, heat will also enter your facility in the form of sunlight, so in addition to proper insulation and sealant, energy-conscious managers need to find something that can keep out the sun.

Consider investing in window films, transparent, metalized sheets that can reflect much of the heat that would otherwise get trapped inside the facility. The lighter the color on the screen, the more light it will reflect, so look for whites, light blues, and other bright colors when making your decision.

You might also look into solar screens, which carry a higher price tag but are incredibly efficient, blocking as much as 70% of solar rays from entering your facility.

Cooling

While you can do a lot to keep heat from the sun out of your plant, ultimately you’ll have to invest in a cooling system to meet the temperature requirements that many of the processes at your plant require. Having the right cooling system in place can result in drastic savings on energy expenses, but it may need some help from you to get there.

As with your heating system, you’ll want to perform a thorough inspection to check that no part of your facility’s cooling system is broken, malfunctioning, or leaking. Consider automating where possible; for instance, you can make big gains simply by implementing a programmable thermostat to ensure that you don’t waste time cooling uninhabited areas of the plant.

For more information about how to keep things cool, take a look at our blog on how you can save on refrigeration and freezing costs throughout your plant.

Insulation

Your plant’s insulation needs shouldn’t only be a concern during the colder months. The same gaps in coverage that allow cold air in during winter also let in heat during the summer, so unless you want a significant portion of your budget spent cooling hot air that shouldn’t be there in the first place, proper insulation should always be a priority.

For more ways you can create a better, more efficient poultry production plant, check out our free informative guide, Why and How to Cross-Train in Maintenance, and take your plant to new heights today!

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However, while we may often take it for granted in our personal lives, in an industrial setting, water is a cost consideration like any other. This is especially true for poultry production plants, given how much water is needed to take each bird from raw material to finished product.

According to the EPA, it takes about nine gallons of water to slaughter one bird, so plants running at high efficiency will quickly start to see their water bills add up. With both environmental conservation and your wallet in mind, here are three key strategies you can use to save water at your poultry production plant:

Performing a Water Audit

It’s practically impossible to cut down your water expenses if you can’t be certain precisely how much you’re using in a given month. However, as issues like population growth, economic development, and regional droughts continue to impact water consumption and availability, it becomes more and more important to know exactly where you stand.

As facility managers continue to face rising rates and water use restrictions, it pays to have a concrete idea of exactly how far you’ll be able to stretch your budget. This has risen to the increasingly common practice of getting a plant-wide water audit.

Water audit is specifically designed to measure and calculate exactly how much water each of your plant’s processes is using, whether it be for the poultry production process itself or for sanitation, maintenance, irrigation, or any other area. A proper water audit traces every drop of water that enters your plant all the way from first entry to eventual discharge into the sewer.

Beyond giving you solid numbers for exactly how much water your plant is using, a water audit will also help you identify any potential leaks and quantify how much previously-unaccountable water your plant is wasting. With this in hand, you’re free to build an effective water management plan for your entire plant.

Waste Reduction and Recycling

Once you know exactly what your budget entails, it’s time to start finding ways to push it further. Of course, no matter your budget, your water bill will always be smaller if you use less water, so one of the best next steps is to look into ways you can reduce the water that goes to waste at your plant and recycle as much leftover water as possible into other processes.

One of the more manageable steps toward water efficiency is simply to ensure that all water-carrying pipes and hoses throughout the plant are free of any leaks and carrying out any necessary repairs as breakages happen. Your water audit will help you in this area by outlining your current problem areas and helping you identify the leaks causing them.

In poultry plants, a lot of spillage tends to occur as birds enter the scalder and the blowers start up, so a simple solution might be to install bigger, deeper tank scalders to reduce the amount of water that splashes over. You can also try using less water in the scalder overall if your plant can manage it without sacrificing product quality.

Some overflow and dripping is inevitable, but smart managers can turn this waste back into usable water by adding drip pans to some of the plant’s most water-heavy equipment. While this is “red water,” meaning it has biological components in it and thus can’t be used for sanitation or any process that needs clean water, it can be reused for process such as the chiller.

Eliminating the Human Aspect

While a significant portion of the water your plant uses will go toward the birds you’re producing, don’t forget about the human aspect. Remember that the primary production of the plant isn’t the only place where water gets wasted. Pay particular attention to your plant’s secondary areas, like kitchens and bathrooms, which can really rack up water expenses.

One problem is that people make mistakes, simply forgetting to turn things off or leaving faucets running. By incorporating electronic faucets and automatic shutoff valves in kitchens and bathrooms, you can save 50-80% of the water currently being used in these areas. Touchless operation through motion sensors also means that fewer germs and pathogens are spread.

For even more information about how you can make the most out of your plant’s processes and build a strategy for success, download our free informative guide, How to Find Efficient Poultry Processing Equipment and take your plant to the next level today!

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Look for these signs in your analysis to decide if it is time to replace your machine:

1) The Cost of Maintenance Is Expensive

Although replacing a machine is a hassle, especially if you have to retrain your employees on how to use it, it makes more sense financially to replace it if the cost of maintenance is getting too expensive. While regular maintenance will give any machine a longer lifespan, there’s only so much wear and tear it can take.

One rule to consider is the “50% Rule.” This rule states that, if the cost to repair is more than 50% of the total cost of replacing the equipment, it’s time to find a new model.

2) Your Machine Is Frequently Out of Service

If your machine is breaking down so often that it is frequently out of service, it may be time to replace it. This can especially be an issue if the machine is out of service long enough to affect production levels and decrease your potential profit.

If your machine is out of service so often that you can no longer rely on it to get the job done, this could be detrimental in meeting the demands on your customers. Your equipment’s functionality – or lack thereof – should not come at the expense of your customers.

Your customers rely on your products getting out when they’re supposed to, so you can’t afford to leave it up to chance.

3) The Machine Is Close to the End of Its Useful Life

The useful life of a machine is the amount of time that a machine is still usable before the value of the machine has fully depreciated, usually expressed in years. It is important to know every machine’s useful life, not just for production and maintenance, but also for accounting records as well.  

Even if the machine is still within its useful lifespan, it still may be more cost effective for you to replace the machine. A machine can show other signs of needing to be replaced even within its useful life, so don’t be afraid to replace it earlier if your production capabilities are suffering.   

4) Your Equipment Is Outdated

If your equipment is outdated and better, more efficient equipment is on the market, it could be time to replace, especially if the ROI of purchasing the newer equipment is positive. Newer equipment may cut down on the time and costs of maintenance, in addition to reducing the cost of producing goods in the first place.

5) Your Machine Poses Safety Risks

Newer equipment often includes more safety features. If replacing your machine will drastically improve safety to your employees, you should replace. Employee safety should always be a priority, even if it is costly.

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However, without the proper procedures in place, electric bath stunning can cause problems of its own. In particular, improper stunning can result in inferior quality meat, meaning that more birds will have to be slaughtered to make up the difference in meat fit for consumption.

If you use electric bath sunning at your plant, it’s worth knowing the best practices to use to achieve the best results and some common mistakes to avoid. If you want to obtain higher quality meat and condemn fewer birds, here are some factors to consider:

Comfort

No matter the animal, stress level prior to slaughter is one of the most important factors that affects overall meat quality. Slaughtering stressed or agitated animals results in tough, chewy meat that can leave customers disappointed.

Unfortunately for poultry manufacturers, the primary source of meat from a bird is also the one at the highest risk. Birds’ breasts hold a high concentration of nerve endings, so stress can easily ruin a large portion of the usable meat. For this reason, it’s vital to keep your birds as calm and comfortable as possible prior to stunning.

For many managers, the solution is a breast comforter (also known as a rub bar): affixed on the production line prior to the electric stunning bath, the breast comforter applies physical contact to the bird’s breast to relax them and encourage neck extension, which in turn results in more effective stunning. Note however that metal comforters should be avoided, as wing contact with metal comforters can cause hematomas.

Contact Area Wetness

Water or humidity on the contact area can result in a pre-shock, causing them to instinctively lift their necks and wings. If this occurs, it can cause the bird to remain conscious during the stunning process, and if it is not unloaded from its shackles, it will suffer a painful death either from bleeding out or from drowning in the scalder.

In order to ensure both better meat quality and a painless, humane death for the bird, make sure the contact area is kept dry to avoid pre-shock.

Lighting

Like all animals, birds instinctively respond to the light levels of their environment, becoming more agitated in well-lit areas and more relaxed in dimly-lit areas.

To keep your birds calm, keep the receiving area at a reduced light level. Also consider switching from white to blue lights, which can enhance the effect. In the best situation, low lighting can even cause birds to fall asleep, putting them in as relaxed a state possible.

Conveyor Gaps

The stunning bath carries exactly enough charge to stun every bird on the overhead conveyor, so if there are unfilled shackles, the birds that enter the bath will receive a higher electrical shock than planned. This can result in bodily damage, improper stunning, or even electrocution, all of which are both inhumane and result in poorer-quality meat.

From an efficiency standpoint, leaving gaps in the line also means having to keep machinery running longer to process the same amount of birds, so filling every shackle is always a good idea.

Hanger Time

One essential component of effective stunning is keeping the process moving quickly. After all, the shorter the time it takes for each bird to get from the last hanger to the stunner, the less time it will have to become agitated prior to stunning.

For the best results, keep the timing from hanger to stunner below 20 seconds.

Monitoring And Analysis

In many ways, proper stunning is a balancing act: set the current too high, and the birds can get damaged or even electrocuted; set the current too low, and the birds may not be fully stunned. Pay close attention to the current levels in the stunner to ensure the best, most humane process.

In addition, should accidents happen, proper monitoring and analysis can help managers identify the problem and fix it as quickly as possible. Careful monitoring can help managers comply with industry standards and increase overall yield simultaneously.

Employee Knowledge

Just like every other aspect of your plant, the best results always rely on proper employee education and training.Thoroughly train all employees on the correct ways to hang each bird on the shackle, as well as the proper measurements for water size, depth, height, and voltage current.

The more employees are familiar with the best processes for stunning, and the more knowledgeable they are, the better chance that accidents can be identified and prevented before they happen, saving you time, money, and a lot of hassle.
If you’re interested in learning more about the best and most effective equipment for your poultry plant, and how to make the most of it, download our free Ebook, How to Find Efficient Poultry Processing Equipment, and start getting more out of your poultry plant.

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Components Of An Energy Bill

Energy prices are derived from two factors: consumption and demand.

• Consumption is the amount of energy that you use in your day-to-day operations.
• Demand charges are determined by recording the highest 15-minute average of energy usage in a particular month. Your facility will be largely impacted by demand costs if you use large amounts of power over short bursts of time. These costs are meant to encourage users to minimize usage during peak hours, as well as to disperse their operations over the course of the work day (Stem).

Factors Affecting Energy Consumption

Energy usage in poultry processing plants has increased over time, as new processes have been implemented to maximize efficiency, profitability, and minimize labor.

In addition to increased mechanization, sanitation standards have also driven energy costs up, as many sanitation methods require substantial resources. Variations in energy consumption can be broken down into two groups: unexplained and explained (tandfonline).

Unexplained Factors

Unexplained factors are immeasurable and must be constantly assessed for efficiency and effectiveness.

• Technical design and plant layout:  Certain plant designs and layouts might lead to inefficient operations, resulting in comparatively  higher energy costs than a fully-optimized facility.
• Age/condition of equipment: Outdated or malfunctioning equipment will inherently operate at substandard efficiency, increasing the energy cost to keep them up and running. Check out our replacement guide if you’re unsure whether your equipment needs replacement.
• Operating practices: Energy costs can be reduced through the proper operation and maintenance of equipment, as well as the adoption of newer and better technology. Costs can also be reduced by considering energy demand, and operating high-output machinery at alternating times.

If you’re unsure about the output of some of your machinery’s individual processes, you can hire someone to audit your facility. He or she will help you get a better understanding of your production equipment, and advise steps you can take to reduce energy use without sacrificing plant output.

Explained Factors

Explained factors are quantifiable, and can be measured and reduced through careful assessment.

• Volume: Production volume is the most important factor in electrical and total energy output. Output volume varies with your plant size, and accounts for 23.7% of the variation in energy consumption in a poultry processing plant (ageconsearch).
• Capacity: Capacity is the degree to which your plant is not using its maximum plant and equipment capacity. This must be carefully monitored, and it’s important to know that operating at maximum capacity can significantly impact energy demand.
• Temperature: Temperature is the most important factor impacting fuel consumption. Seasonal patterns greatly impact energy usage, and lead to fluctuations in costs.
• Fuel price: Fuel is commonly used in heating for steam and hot water, which is essential in a poultry processing plant for a number of processes. Fuel prices commonly fluctuate, and will substantially affect the size of your monthly bill.
• Electricity price: Electricity is used for ventilation, cooling/refrigeration, machinery operation, lighting, and supplemental heat. As previously mentioned, electricity prices are affected by energy consumption and demand, and can be manipulation through careful usage and operating during periods with low demand.

Overall, poultry processing is very energy-intensive, making it essential to consider your the energy usage of individual processes, assess your facility, and ensure that you’re taking measures to reduce consumption and increase overall efficiency.

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Reasons For Replacement

There are many factors that can lead to the breakdown/deterioration of your equipment parts. Here are 3 primary reasons that constitute the replacement of your processing equipment:

1. Depleted Function/It’s Broken

   • Vibration, shock, and high temperatures can lead to machinery breakdowns. It’s important to assess your equipment to make sure that it’s running properly, and take corrective measures if you’re experiencing an issue.
   • Check lubrication- when running a maintenance check, look for signs of excess oil or grease build ups. Analyzing the particle content of the used oil will allow you to see if there are contaminants resulting from worn-down or malfunctioning equipment (Manufacturing Transformation).

2. Deterioration Due To Aging

   • Outdated equipment will naturally deteriorate and lose its functionality. It’s important to detect signs of aging equipment and replace as needed.

3. Equipment Is Obsolete

   • If you’re operating with outdated equipment, you might be losing efficiency. Replacing old equipment with Updated or improved parts might allow for a more effective process and improve overall performance.

Predictive Maintenance Methods

Now that you know what factors affect the lifespan of your machinery parts, it’s essential to check these areas regularly to prevent breakdowns. Our recommended methodology is Predictive maintenance. Predictive maintenance involves taking constant measures to assess your plant’s machinery, and identifying problems before they arise. This will allow for a more efficient operation, as you reduce downtime with fewer breakdowns. According to Lean Manufacturing Tools, here’s two predictive maintenance methods that will help you manage your equipment:

1. Vibration Analysis

   • When machinery parts are worn, they will give off different vibration patterns. Using built in monitors, or handheld vibration analyzers, you can detect these patterns as they arise, and take proper action.

2. Thermal imaging

   • Malfunctioning circuitry and worn equipment tend to give off extra heat. With the use of thermal imaging, you will be able to detect these “hot spots,” and determine which parts need attention.

Economic Evaluation

Once you’ve identified which parts need replacement, you must determine what fits into your budget. If the piece is essential, replace it immediately. If the piece is obsolete/non-essential to your operation, you should assess the needed parts, and prioritize replacement based on relative importance.

The best way to assess the your replacement needs is to create a detailed spreadsheet that hilights your budget and lists individual parts, sorted by operational importance. When determining the value of each item, it’s essential to consider the productive and financial outcome of replacement. Once you’ve created a spreadsheet and you’re ready to make purchases, you simply move through the list, selecting items to replace until you’ve fulfilled your budget.  This will ensure that you reduce spending on unnecessary items, and focus on what’s essential to your process (Cal Poly).

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