Five Indicators You Might Need Professional Project Services for Your Next Extrusion Build

By Jason Lang, Vice President, Corporate Project Services, Wenger Manufacturing

The inherent complexity of managing large-scale extrusion projects means they are not do-it-yourself endeavors.

Whether building a completely new factory or upgrading existing equipment, manufacturing companies—and those in food production in particular—can benefit immensely from outside professional expertise.

Not all professional project services are created equally, though, and it is important to find a partner who is up to the task of helping you navigate your specific challenges. It takes someone who understands the nuances and complexities of food production in an industry under constant scrutiny with stringent regulations and hypervigilant consumers. It takes a partner with broad experience and know-how to customize a plan for your unique vision and goals, who is also humble enough to see the value of collaborating with your own internal experts. It takes someone who is intimately familiar with the equipment; and, if you’re a global entity, someone undeterred by the challenges of working internationally.

Corporate Project Services is an expert in extrusion-based technology, which manufacturers rely on to safely and efficiently produce high quality food products. Whether your extrusion project is for pet food, aquafeed, or human food, manufacturers need a partner with the experience and expertise to help navigate a rapidly evolving and complex industry.

Below are five significant reasons your project could benefit from external expertise:

A new extrusion project may be high stakes and high priority, but so are the countless other tasks vying for your team’s attention. The best project services partner can plug right in to give your team extra horsepower or fill gaps in specialized skill sets not already covered in-house.

Resource allocation is often an issue with new plant installations because companies usually cannot afford to reallocate their brightest people to a multi-year special assignment. There’s great benefit in having an outsider’s perspective—such a partner can be your eyes and ears externally while you stay focused on internal priorities. By establishing a closely integrated working relationship with an outside partner, you maintain oversight of the project without monopolizing internal resources with implementation.

Having an in-depth understanding of extrusion technology and processes is one area where CPS excels. Backed by Wenger’s legacy of extrusion excellence, CPS has the know-how and tools to help companies implement the latest advancements.

For global organizations, choosing a partner with international expertise is another important specialty to consider. CPS works with multi-cultural teams every day and understands the unique challenges of international collaborations. We know how to master those challenges using effective communication and flexibility in adapting to the unique business practices of the region.

There’s no room for ambiguity when it comes to manufacturing design. Precision is paramount. Within our arsenal of solutions for driving innovation in building design, CPS has state-of-the-art tools that support accuracy and efficiency, and these have become valuable assets to clients looking to expand or make improvements to existing facilities.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is proving to be increasingly useful in extrusion systems and processes, and we can help deploy AI to make your operators’ jobs easier. We’re able to use feedback from devices in the field to automate changes in the extrusion system to achieve desired moisture and density levels. This keeps production flowing for significant efficiency improvements.

Many manufacturing facilities have requirements to become more energy efficient. CPS can design projects and help deploy processes to reduce the high demand on fossil fuels that are historically common to the extrusion process. CPS is eager to help with advancements in heat recapturing solutions and extrusion processes that facilitate reduction in steam and/or electrical demands.

Using high-accuracy 3D laser scanning, CPS can produce facility drawings that are dimensionally accurate, measurable, and sharable. The end result is seeing your facility through the lens of powerful 3D imagery that uses millions of data points to tell the most complete story possible. With the 2-4 mm accuracy achieved through our 3D scanning, we can very precisely account for every detail, avoiding production delays and other costly impediments caused by inaccurate or incomplete site plans.

When the stakes are high (as they are with most manufacturing projects), uncertainty can make the task of choosing a path feel daunting. The right partner will guide you through the risk vs. reward analysis before making high stakes decisions, considering the pros and cons of various factory designs and equipment when formulating recommendations.

Simply comparing the number of pros vs. cons isn’t enough, as some pros carry more weight than others and some cons have less of a negative impact. CPS follows the “good, better or best” philosophy, which is a great help for clients facing big decisions. Even though the high cost of taking the “best” approach might make it out of reach, the “good” or “better” approach could still meet your goals. Deciding against the “best” path doesn’t have to prevent you from meeting your goals, and the right partner will optimize the design within the available budget and ensure you achieve the expected return on investment.

The two most preventable disruptors to project cadence are delays in decision-making and breakdowns in communication. Having professional expertise can really be of value when you’re needing to pitch your project to corporate leadership, trying to manage the project with your own internal resources, and interfacing with outside vendors.

Selling the project internally is often the first big hurdle, and your chances of getting the green light are much better when you’re armed with the right information to justify the time and cost investment. CPS knows the top considerations of those approving your project and we can help you build a solid case. How quickly will you get payback? What will the facility look like? What is the flow going to be? What does a day in the life of an operator look like? You want a partner who understands what decision makers need to know—the interests of a CEO or CFO will be different than an R&D director, and your partner should be able to help you deliver the right insight to whomever is sitting across the table.

Once the project is off and running, the key to steady progress is frequent communication within the work team and prompt follow-through on action items. Having the right information delivered at the right time enables you to make better decisions more quickly. Hiring outside help not only increases your team’s bandwidth, it brings clarity to projects in the form of solid input to help teams make better decisions, and faster, to keep the project moving forward smoothly.

Facilitating communication with outside vendors is another critical piece to achieving a successful installation. CPS is adept at bridging concept to contractor, and having complete and accurate information from the start enables a sound bid so the project isn’t fraught with surprises and chaos. We make sure what is detailed on paper is communicated concretely to the contractor and other collaborative vendors to ensure specifications on capacities, utilities and other pertinent details are understood by all involved parties from the beginning and through the entire project.

From the storm of external pressures, the food industry has emerged more focused than ever on safety and quality. The good news is advancements in food production allow development of formulations to improve health, keep food products safe from contamination, and produce food safely and more efficiently to meet growing production demands.

This is all great news for the end consumers looking for high quality products. But, those advancements have led to more complex processes and require sophisticated factory designs, and this can be overwhelming when you’re the one leading the charge.

The right partner can help a company circumvent millions in losses in a factory by creating a safe production environment that is easy to manage and sustain for the long term. Looking at it from the perspectives of worker safety and product contamination prevention, CPS will mitigate risks for all scenarios that could arise in the factory in order to prevent injury, downtime or product recalls. Whether it’s advising on better ways to automate processes for scale-up or designing a brand-new facility, it is critical to map out an approach that achieves quality standards while maintaining a safe and clean manufacturing environment.

Manufacturing companies need a partner who’s been through all the scenarios, who can communicate effectively with every level and function in your organization, who can advise on all the nuances of safety, and who can collaborate with your internal team and your contractors to lead the project to fruition.

At Corporate Project Services, we’ve devoted our careers to this and can align anywhere your project calls for expert guidance. Collectively, our team has more than 120 years of experience in the industry with expertise in management, engineering, sales and international factory integration, all which give us unequaled know-how in project planning services. We are in the factories every day talking with industry experts about best practices. From cost analysis through implementation and everything in between, Corporate Project Services is equipped to be your partner every step of the way to ensure your project meets the design criteria and your unique objectives. If you have challenges you’d like to discuss with an outside expert, please reach out to our team and we’d be glad to help.

Corporate Project Services, a division of Wenger Manufacturing, is a dynamic group of planning specialists backed by Wenger’s nearly 90 years of process system supply to the industry. Our knowledge base and breadth of experience in extrusion processing and facilities construction is unsurpassed – and our commitment to excellence is recognized around the world.