Compromising Solutions
Adding value has been the major driver for Insta-Pro business since the company was founded in late 1960’s. Farmers around do this by growing their own crops and conducting on the farm processing to feed directly to animals; this allows them to capture additional profits by cutting out the middle men.
In this blog I am going to write about how Insta-Pro helps farmers and businesses add value to local crops and save money. Extrusion equipment operates under high pressure and high temperatures and it is critical to maintain certain parameters to ensure stable quality of the final product mode. Insta-Pro allows its clients to save money by offering quality machinery, durable wear components and a high quality end product.
Our expertise is based on 45 years of experience in the extrusion business along with heavy R&D work and involvement in university studies. Our team focuses on educating prospective clients about the advantages of extrusion technology through personal interaction during workshops, trade shows and one on one visits. It is not uncommon for prospects to shop around; and before too long they find out that there are other extruders in the market with a more attractive price tag. But what they discover is it’s hard to control temperatures causing the product quality to decrease. As a result, animals do not perform well when this product is consumed and the varied temperatures cause equipment to wear out too fast. I would like to share with you a real life example of how we help clients when they find themselves in situations like these.
One of our clients in Russia (ZAO Tubinsk) recently purchased an extrusion line from us for processing canola and barley mix. Prior to purchasing our machine, that they used a copy of Insta-Pro extruder purchased for 35% less than the price of Insta-Pro equipment. After months of struggle, frustrations and high cost of wear components; they decided to replace this extruder with Insta-Pro equipment.
We have two technicians on staff in our office in Stavropol, Russia who do start ups and train our clients’ technical personnel, Yuri Roslyakov has been with the company for over 18 years and Arthur Gavrishev who has recently been hired due to growth of our business in the market place.
Here is what Yuri discovered about the competitors extruder from the operator:
- It is very hard to start and stop. In order to clean the barrel, the extruder operator pours water through the extruder. It’s hard and messy.
- It can take up to an hour to get the temperature up to the maximum available temperature of 110 C, causing the product to be undercooked
- If you increase feed intake there is huge vibration. The extruder barrel wobbles and it becomes scary.
- When material is under processed, the final product gets very sticky and operators have to put sand on the belt conveyor in order to prevent the product from slipping. The operator will then clean the belt several times per shift due this problem.
- Parts wear too fast. Need to replace parts every two weeks. Sometimes sooner.
The owner of ZAO Tubinsk made the decision to purchase Insta-Pro equipment. It was not an easy decision since they already had one competitors extruder and there was some skepticism whether an imported extruder would be any different. But, since their neighbor was already doing this successfully on Insta-Pro machinery Tubinsk finally decided to buy from us. According to extruder operator Insta-Pro machinery runs much smoother, it’s very easy to operate and most importantly the quality of the end product is very high and consistent.
Insta-Pro has offices in different parts of the world and we have come across similar situations in various countries. Each one of our sales directors could give numerous examples how people learn by their mistakes.
One can always understand the desire to save money on capital investment by buying cheaper equipment. Often times customers think that since extrusion equipment is pretty simple (and looks like Insta-Pro) they can save money on buying something locally. But looks are deceptive. It’s the many years of research, development and quality that makes Insta-Pro a great value.
