The agri-food industry depends on heavy and specialized equipment such as conveyors, distributors, rotary feeders and scrapers, bucket elevators, bin systems, and mixers. This equipment must be durable enough to withstand heavy, prolonged use without constant repair and replacement. It can also be costly, and installing it is a complex process involving hardcore machining.
Mitchells, a leading designer, manufacturer, and installer of heavy-duty equipment, understands the assignment and delivers world-class conveying solutions for the agri-food industry. For decades, Mitchells has built a solid reputation as the global leader in supplying and installing conveying solutions and assorted heavy-duty equipment across six continents. And since iron sharpens iron, MaxiLift high-quality plastic solutions help Mitchells enhance the quality of their product offerings and operations.
Mitchells’ Service Offering
The Australian-owned company operates globally with physical offices in the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Nanjing. In addition to equipment, Mitchells provides expert collaborative advice and specialized services for various markets. Their top market solutions include:
- Grain handling and storage solutions, such as grain reception, cleaning, and weighing
- Oilseed conveying solutions like plant audits and revamps, troubleshooting conveying systems, and supplying en masse chain conveyors
- Animal feedmill solutions, such as designing and manufacturing modular feedmills and varying bulk material handling solutions
- Customized engineering and manufacturing for specialty projects on an as-needed basis
Why Mitchells Sought a Plastic Solution From MaxiLift
Mitchells sought MaxiLift plastic solutions to achieve three main objectives.
Enhance Product Quality
Mitchells’ products must be of premium quality to endure the tough conditions of material handling and conveying. To meet these demands, Mitchells manufactures and classifies equipment under two categories:
- Standard equipment, which includes distributors, fans, bucket elevators, screw conveyors, bulk flow conveyors, jet pulse filters, rotary feeders, slide gates, belt conveyors, diverters, and rotary scalpers
- Specialized equipment, which includes bin systems, plug screw conveyors, vapor tight conveyors, hoppers, scale hoppers, and mixers
MaxiLift’s high-quality plastic products, like the Tiger-Tuff maximum duty elevator bucket, offer ideal solutions to companies like Mitchells seeking to reinforce their product quality.
Meet Technical Requirements
Hard materials like metal make it difficult for Mitchells’ engineering and fabrication team to customize equipment to a precise technical standard. Customizing metals using fabrication techniques like welding, bending, and cutting is time-intensive and costly, especially when you need intricate designs like a beefy calumet shape.
By partnering with MaxiLift, Mitchells can use high-quality, durable plastic that allows for greater flexibility in design while meeting specific technical requirements. Satisfying the technical standards also helps Mitchells comply with industry and regulatory requirements.
Satisfy Customer Requests
Because of the many diverse clients Mitchells serves, its products, like bin systems, must meet specific design standards. This requires Mitchells to maintain flexibility in their design and manufacturing approach.
Like Mitchells, many material handling and conveying solutions companies are embracing plastics for their design. Some of the numerous benefits of utilizing plastics in the agri-food industry and beyond include:
- Design flexibility: Plastics are lightweight, which makes them easier to customize and fit into multisized systems with unique technical requirements.
- Contaminant-free: Because plastics are rust and corrosion-resistant, they keep food contents in the conveyors toxin-free.
- Noise reduction: Using plastics significantly reduces the grinding noise produced by conveyor systems when operating.
- Energy efficiency: The lightweight quality of plastics lowers the overall weight of conveyor systems, enabling them to operate with greater energy efficiency.
The MaxiLift Solution
To design ideal plastic solutions for Mitchells, MaxiLift collaborated closely with their engineering team to understand their equipment design and manufacturing process. Mitchells’ line of work aligns with MaxiLift’s extensive product line of plastic agriculture buckets, giving Mitchells ample options to serve diverse customers.
Elevator Buckets
Mitchells benefits from our expansive product catalogs of elevator buckets to serve the needs of their diverse agri-food clients. For instance, Mitchells can leverage our Tiger-CC maximum duty elevator buckets to serve clients handling grain and food products. Other agricultural buckets at Mitchells’ disposal include:
- Tiger-Tuff maximum duty elevator bucket
- CC-Max
- HD-STAX
- HD-MAX Heavy Duty elevator bucket
Elevator Belts
Mitchells manufactures bucket elevators and conveyors, which need high-grade belts to operate optimally for a long time. MaxiLift supplies heavy-duty interwoven-constructed belts for bucket elevators. These PVC beltings are ideal for bucket elevators handling grain, seed, feed, and fertilizer because they’re flame-resistant, oil-resistant, and tear-resistant.
MaxiLift also supplies heavy-duty, plied rubber-constructed belts suitable for bucket elevators handling crushed soybeans and oil-treated grain, and a variety of vegetable and animal fats. These belts have excellent combustion and flame-resistant properties and satisfy and exceed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) safety standards.
By supporting bucket elevators serving multiple purposes, our PVC and rubber belting empower Mitchells to effectively serve clients from different backgrounds. And because they’re OSHA and ISO-certified, they facilitate Mitchell’s clients in upholding workplace safety standards.
Lagging Pads
If there’s no friction between the driver pulley and the elevator belt, the belting will slip more often and wear out much faster. That’s where lagging pads come in.
Also called pulley lagging, lagging pads enhance friction between the pulley and elevator belt. Our partnership with Mitchells enables us to customize lagging pads according to the elevator belts. This allows them to supply elevator belts with the accompanying lagging pads, relieving their clients of the stress of having to find them on their own.
Impact of MaxiLift’s Plastic Products On Mitchells’ Operations
By leveraging our bucket elevators, belts, and lagging pads, Mitchells has enjoyed increased durability and enhanced equipment performance. Due to the top quality and longevity of MaxiLift’s products, the company experienced fewer maintenance demands for its equipment and fewer overall repairs. And fewer repairs mean less downtime, translating into higher returns on investment and lower operational costs.
The immediate benefits Mitchells experienced after adopting MaxiLift products included faster delivery times driven by increased operational efficiency. With products delivered in top quality, Mitchells can delight customers with its unique selling proposition every time, standing out from the competition.
In addition to increased reliability, speed, and quality, Mitchells relies on MaxiLift to help meet industry standards, which are typically quite demanding and attract steep non-compliance penalties and fines.
Additionally, MaxiLift products carry certifications from leading regulatory bodies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ensuring that Mitchells remains compliant with critical safety and quality standards.
Together, these advantages make MaxiLift not just a supplier but a strategic partner in Mitchells’ long-term growth and success.
