60,000 t/year poultry feed mill — planning tool to contracted scope
Documented walkthrough of how a commercial poultry producer used the FeedMatch capacity calculator and RFQ planner to turn an annual tonnage target into an effective capacity, a written requirement and six quotations that could finally be compared line by line. Figures are the worked example produced by the published tools, not a client disclosure.
- Europe
- Country
- Broilers and layers
- Category
- 60,000 t/year compound feed
- Scale
- 3
- Reference outcomes
Load requirements
Design loads used to size housing, utilities and equipment.
System design choices
Why each subsystem was specified the way it was.
| Area | Choice | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Process route | Grinding, dosing on load cells, batch mixing, conditioning, pelleting, cooling and crumbling | Poultry starter, grower and finisher in pellet and crumble form; no extrusion requirement in the product list. |
| Capacity basis | Effective t/h from annual tonnage, quoted with 10% nameplate headroom | A nameplate figure alone hides recipe changeovers and cleaning; the headroom keeps the annual plan achievable. |
| Storage and handling | Intake, pre-cleaning, 21 days raw-material cover, finished bins, bagging plus bulk loadout | Daily throughput of 200 t sets intake and despatch rates; handling, not the pellet mill, is the usual bottleneck. |
| Automation | Semi-automatic batching with recipe management and batch reporting | Customer audits required batch records; full traceability scope was priced as a defined option rather than assumed. |
| Scope split | Process package from the manufacturer; civil works and building locally; erection supervised | Stated in the RFQ so every offer excluded the same items and the comparison stayed like for like. |
Results
Representative KPIs achieved on projects of this scope.
Challenges and how they were resolved
What went wrong in the first definition of the requirement, and what changed before suppliers quoted.
Manufacturers each assumed their own shifts, days and utilisation, so quoted line sizes differed by more than 40%.
ResolutionThe capacity calculator fixed shifts, days and utilisation in writing, and the RFQ quoted one nameplate figure.
Two offers included a boiler, three excluded it and one referenced it without a capacity, making price comparison meaningless.
ResolutionThe RFQ checklist made steam source and boiler capacity an explicit in-scope or out-of-scope line for every supplier.
Supervision-only and full mechanical-plus-electrical erection were being compared as if they were the same service.
ResolutionThe request separated supervision, full erection, commissioning, training and warranty into priced line items.
Capacity, kWh per tonne, pellet durability and mixing CV were mentioned but never tied to a test method or sign-off.
ResolutionGuarantees and the acceptance test method were written into the RFQ before contract discussions started.
The numbers
Indicative capital and operating figures for a project of this scope. Ranges, not quotations.
| Process equipment | 35–50% of installed cost |
| Storage and material handling | 10–18% |
| Civil works and structure | 15–25% |
| Contingency carried | 5–10% |
Representative outcomes
- Annual target converted to 15.4 t/h effective and 17.1 t/h nameplate capacity
- One written requirement issued to six manufacturers instead of six different briefs
- Scope gaps (civil works, steam, erection, spares) priced before contract, not after
Run these numbers yourself
Note: This case study is an anonymized reference scenario. Specific client identities, contract values and commercial terms are withheld under NDA. Figures reflect typical outcomes for projects of this scope and are not a guarantee for your project.