“The machines used at the mill sector operate 24/7; the most important factor of maximizing mill efficiency is ensuring that the machines operate at full capacity. That’s why selecting quality and reliable machines is extremely important. “

Bora GÖKDENİZ Alapala Makina Director of Corporate Investments

A well-designed diagram can ensure the optimization of the number of machines at the mill through the use of the high-quality and reliable machines/equipment. Thus, excess number of machinery will not be required. Here, the selection of the quality machines is not sufficient alone, but also the efficient and efficient design of the aspiration and pneumatic conveying line is of utmost importance.

In addition, one of the most important factors contributing to the quality of the machines is that the manufacturer supplies components used in machine building with high quality standards. The selection of high quality international brands of bearings, balls, sieves, straps, motors and electrical parts that make up the machine will also increase the total quality of the mill.

The machines used at the mill sector operate 24/7; the most important factor of maximizing mill efficiency is ensuring that the machines operate at full capacity. That’s why selecting quality and reliable machines is extremely important. There is a possibility that a mill equipped with low quality machines will cause problems and the production will stop. For example; the daily loss for a 300-ton/ capacity mill for just one day will be around 100,000 American dollars.

Preventive maintenance is an operation to prevent machinery and equipment from erroneously eroding the parts that make up the machine before they break down to determine if they require a replacement and to prevent any potential problems.

One of the most important elements in this area is that the equipped staff with the technical knowledge to perform this preventive maintenance work at the mill. In this context, it is an important criterion that high quality technical staff is employed by mill owners.

Maintenance and repairs must definitely be carried out by the trained personnel. If there are people working at the mills that do not have the necessary and sufficient technical experience in maintenance and repair, the related technical service support for the maintenance and repairs must be taken from the machinery and equipment manufacturers. This will ensure that parts that have failed and need replacement are replaced with the original and quality parts by the manufacturer and the warranty will continue to be covered.

EFFECTS OF THE UNPLANNED MAINTENANCE • Losses in production, • Unclaimed expenditures, • Unnecessary stop of the mill, • Loss of time, • Possible dependence on other companies providing technical support.

ADVANTAGES OF REGULAR MACHINE MAINTENANCE The most important advantage of continuous and proper machine maintenance is that the efficiency of the mill will increase as well as; • Increased productivity, • Ensuring more work is done • Decrease in the production interruption time, • Increased quality of products (flour, semolina, etc.) • Decrease in costly part replacement, • Reduced repairs, • Preventing damage to transport lines (pipes) • Possible dependence on other companies providing repairs support. MAINTENANCE PERIODS OF MACHINERY AND EQUIPMENTS IN MIILS • Daily, • Weekly, • Long-term Maintenance.

Daily Maintenance: Before the production starts, the product entry and exit areas of the machines must be cleared off from previous deposits. It is especially important that the wastes accumulated in the product entry slots of the rollers and rolls are regularly checked through this maintenance. The Sealing elements in the sections where there may be a leaking of dust and whether the covers are closed completely and whether the flow pipes and connection elements are blocked or not and the flow state of the sieves must be checked before daily work and the necessary maintenance must be done carefully.

The control of the carrier lines (piping) is extremely important. In untreated pipelines, fewer products will flow, pests will increase, pipes will suffer damage, and extremely expensive repairs may be required. To prevent this, chemicals suitable for the products, long cable brushes and plastic hammers can be used. The pressure of the compressor, which provides the air required for the operation of the motors, must be regularly kept under control and constantly monitored.

Weekly Maintenance: It covers the check whether the components of the machine - bearings, motors, gears and straps - are working properly. The surfaces of the gears of the rollers must be checked. However, the condition of the brushes and blades that perform the cleaning of the rollers must also be checked.

The conditions and cleanliness of the sieves must be strictly checked. In order for the filters to operate under the required conditions, it is essential to also check and clean the dust bags.

The lubrication conditions of the machines must be checked. The gears and bearings must be continuously checked as to whether they have the required lubricant.

Long-term Maintenance: It is often carried out during periods when mills temporarily stop production. The gears and surface abrasions of the rollers (Crushing and Liso) must be checked and if necessary, re-grinding, grinding and sandblasting must be applied. The rollers must be replaced with new ones if the balls and rollers are worn or broken.

The silk tearing on the sieves and whether the sealing equipment is worn out are the most important points that must be checked during this period. The total cleaning of the sieves is necessary. These cleanings must be carried out every two to three months.

This maintenance will extend the operating times of the machines and equipment and prevent possible failures during production. GENERAL PROCEDURES TO BE PERFORMED AT THE MAINTENANCE In short, the general procedures to be performed at the maintenance are as follows: • Part replacement • Torque control, • Lubrication, • General cleaning, • Control, • Oil change, • Strap tension control, • Hygienic cleaning, • Leak control.

In addition to regular and timely maintenance and repairs, one of the most important issues at a mill is the presence of ready-made critical spare parts in possible part failures. If the mill waits for the spare part in the event of a fault, the material loss will be inevitable.

A contract must be concluded with regard to the aftermarket and warranty coverage during the delivery (test runs) of the mills from the producers. With this contract, it will also be possible to prevent possible long-term production losses in the future.

SPRAYING OF THE FLOUR MILLS: FUMIGA TION METHOD As per the law, mills must be fumigated at least once a year (two times more suitable) and purified from all kinds of harmful insects and rodents. This general fumigation must be done prior to the new harvest every year. The biggest problem in flour mills is product pests. These are flour pests, wheat louse, cereal weevil, sawtoothed grain beetle, etc. These harmful pests are transported directly from the field along with the product and cause great economic losses. For this reason, spraying with liquid formulations is not very effective in flour mills. The reason is that the drug cannot be applied directly to the product as these harmful pests are in the product itself. Therefore, fumigation (gassing) method is the most appropriate method to apply. Methyl Bromide or Hydrogen Phosphite yield good results if it is well insulated. However, this can be done by obtaining special permits from the state. Methyl Bromide is not sold to everybody, but it can be purchased with special permission.

If the fumigation process is carried out by experienced agricultural engineers in this regard, the product will not suffer any harm. A fumigation report must be issued by the operator after the fumigation. All doors are closed and sealed by the operator and the operation area is abandoned. The door is opened by the fumigation operator and the inside is ventilated. When the inside of the mill is fumigated, no living beings can enter inside because the results can be lethal and the fumigation procedure cannot reach its purpose.

TRAINING ON TECHNICAL MAINTENANCE With respect to the preventive maintenance, every customer for whom we, as Alapala, build mills is given all training, either in our mills or at our customer’s mill by our technical team and our expert. This training is given to all technical staff and millers who work at the mill.

However, the number of worldwide mill owners who are not aware of this maintenance and repair is quite high. As Alapala, we provide services to all our own customers or those with other brands by our specialist team and specialist spare parts company both in spare parts and after-sales services. It is extremely important in terms of the image of both our company and our country that our customers are able to solve the failures in the shortest time so that our customers can not suffer the financial loss and the problems.

WHAT CAN BE DONE AT A MILL FOR MAINTE NANCE AND REPAIRS? • For each machine and equipment used in the mill, a form must be prepared including such information as the name of the machine, year of production, capacities, engine powers, etc. and must be affixed to at a visible place with a protection that will prevent it from being worn out. • Maintenance and planned maintenance-repair schedule must be written and recorded. The most ideal thing here is to be able to do this through automation. • There must be a simple Spare Parts inventory program so that inventory control can be carried out and the mill will not have to stop as a result of missing spare parts. • Catalogs, maintenance-repair manuals, spare parts catalogs of the machines must be available. • The repair instructions and instructions specified by the manufacturer must be strictly followed and original spare parts must be used. Thus, the warranty of the machines will continue. • Furthermore, another important point is that when a breakdown occurs, not only must this breakdown be corrected, but at the same time the cause of the breakdown must be searched and the actual cause must be found. Thus, the same fault will be prevented from reoccurring. • Calibration is a kind of maintenance operation. For this reason, it is beneficial for the calibration to be carried out at certain intervals in the maintenance process. • The ratio of dust to the air in the mills is also extremely important. Exceeding certain ratios and limits of this ratio is extremely dangerous and may cause dust explosion. To avoid such dangerous situations, cleanliness must be paid extreme caution and employees must be given general purpose control training. If there is no knowledgeable staff in this area, support must be obtained from the manufacturer. • Spare parts in mills are the most important item for the mill to operate without interruptions and sufficient stocking must be available for this. Mill owners must not see this stock as a financial burden. Otherwise; more losses will be encountered. • One of the most critical issues in the mills is cleaning. The performance of a dirty, irregular, dusty, irregular and parts-packed mill will not be at the desired level. • Mill owners and technical staff must closely follow the developing technology in the sector and use the right equipment and materials in the right places. The most important points in this sector are: Abrasions, buckling, impacts, high temperature and long working conditions. And selected materials must withstand these factors.

One of the most important advantages here is that there is no increase in the total energy consumption of the plant after regular and timely maintenance and repair. As a result, proper and timely maintenance is a cost saving procedure on its own.

One of the biggest reasons why ALAPALA has gained loyalty in the sector and why customers we have established mills choose our company again is because our company always stands by our customers with its continuous and timely after-sales service ensuring longer machine life.

All services we offer are always based on working jointly with the miller under all conditions, ensuring the required productivity and capacity and giving the optimum production process.