Quality control of the feed production process is the key to producing qualified products. The company’s management level and industry requirements also play a vital role. Supervision and inspection as part of quality management has long been an important means of quality control for enterprises, and through data testing, the conformity of data with standard requirements can be reflected in whether the product is acceptable.
01
Product formulation
If you want to produce a good product, you must have a good formula. The design of the recipe should be based on the stage needs of the farmed animals. Generally, the standard should be set first (or you can directly use the national standard or the line standard, etc.), and according to the standard, the raw materials should be selected to formulate a feed with suitable protein, energy, vitamins, trace elements, amino acids and other nutrients; the digestive capacity of the animals at different stages should also be considered, and raw materials suitable for digestion and absorption should be selected, with the option of adding probiotics, enzyme preparations, The ingredients should be reasonably matched according to the characteristics of the raw material, to meet the needs of animal growth, but also to consider the cost, but also to consider various factors of food safety, comprehensive consideration will be matched with the most suitable formula.
It can be seen that the most suitable formula is not the best formula, because the price cost has to be weighed, now the price of raw materials is high, feed mills are looking for alternatives to high-priced raw materials, using miscellaneous meal instead of soybean meal, wheat or other raw materials instead of corn, in the case of making the indicators meet the requirements of raw materials and production costs acceptable.
02
Raw materials
Raw materials are the most critical aspect of product quality, and it is vital to use raw materials that meet production needs, and to ensure that raw materials meet needs we must strictly control the entry and use of raw materials.
2.1 Determine the variety of raw materials according to the needs of the company
According to the company’s needs to determine the variety of raw materials, the choice of suppliers, the general requirements of the supplier evaluation, the supplier company’s qualifications, production capacity, technology, management level, product quality and other comprehensive evaluation, the high rating of enterprises into the list of qualified suppliers, which is the first step.
2.2 Checking incoming raw materials for purchase
Raw materials into the factory first check whether the packaging label and other requirements, and then sampling, sampling to be scattered evenly selected sampling points, sampling process to determine the sensory, to make full use of the eyes, nose, hands and other senses, to discriminate, for the colour, colour, fineness, uniformity, smell, impurities, mould, lumps, insects and other indicators can immediately make a decision, each raw material has its own specific appearance, so the appearance of Judgement will be an important indicator of raw materials, the old chemist can control a lot of unqualified products just by sensory one, sampling is completed, fill in the raw material inspection records. Samples are mixed by methods such as the four-part method, test data, and leave samples, fill in the records of sample retention.
2.3 Indicator testing
According to the raw material standards developed test indicators, testing, generally with national standards using the national standard method, no national standards using the line standard, enterprise standards and other methods, raw materials in addition to conventional indicators, such as protein, moisture, ash, crude fat and crude fibre, etc., there are its specific index requirements, mainly characteristic indicators and health indicators 6, health indicators are mainly controlled in such as agricultural by-products to measure mould and other indicators, corn and by-products to measure mould toxins, mineral products to measure heavy metals, etc. for a certain raw material which health indicators are more likely to exceed the standard selected. This is usually the result of experience gained after a period of testing all of them, and a clear understanding of which indicators are mainly controlled for which raw materials. Which indicators exceed the standard will be toxic to animals and should be strictly controlled; for health indicators, different manufacturers, different batches will vary greatly, many raw material manufacturers do not have the ability to test, some manufacturers are choosing low-cost raw materials, resulting in product quality does not meet the requirements of the final decision of the raw material can not only look at conventional indicators, some people are only concerned about the content of protein, in fact, protein is also available non-usable, through Appearance, indicators, and other areas of concern, a comprehensive determination of the selection of suitable raw materials.
Most feed manufacturers will use near-infrared detector for testing, conventional indicators 1 min all out, greatly shorten the detection time, so that raw materials and process quality control in a timely and rapid manner, so that the quality of control in a timely manner, to avoid unnecessary waste.
2.4 Qualified raw materials into the warehouse
The use of the process requires general raw materials to be first in, first out, but also according to the product requirements of a reasonable mix of colour changes, indicators of high and low to be used in proportion to ensure the stability of the product. Stock raw materials need to meet the storage requirements, and regular inspections should be carried out to avoid the deterioration of raw materials arising from improper storage.
2.5 Control of the use process
There is another aspect of quality control of raw materials, which is the control of the use process, after all, in the process of raw materials into the plant, for the sampling part, sometimes there may be some unqualified not taken, or in storage problems, it is necessary to control the use process, to avoid flow into the next process.
03
Operators
Operators are an important factor in the whole process of feed production, people are the executors of the whole production work, now many enterprises are using mechanisation to minimise the use of people, the initial input is relatively high, the running costs are relatively low; of course, as long as the subjective initiative of the personnel is given full play, it will improve the production level, improve production and quality, so for the human factor, it is necessary to strengthen management, develop a standardised process, increase personnel training, mobilise human initiative through various means such as rewards and punishments, and allow personnel to play an active role, so that they can correct machine errors in a timely manner, discover problems in the previous process, avoid entering the next process, and eliminate the use of spoiled raw materials and other various production problems that will be encountered.
04
Management level
With the development of society, national policies, industry and other aspects of the requirements of the company’s management is being paid more and more attention to, if the enterprise can not keep up with the pace of social development will be eliminated, this is the survival of the fittest, is the law of society, but also the driving force of social progress. Even some small enterprises have taken the initiative to adopt a series of quality and safety management systems, such as ISO9001 and safety standardisation, and some slightly larger enterprises will arrange for specialised personnel to be responsible for the regular revision of system documents, and each post and equipment has its own operating procedures. All work is recorded and implemented on paper, so that all work can be traced and products can be traced.
Good management is also an important guarantee for the production of qualified products, mainly because the operators are trained and have the ability to match their positions, and a good system makes the operators have a positive mindset, which maximises the elimination of unqualified products. In short, a manager should not only see the cost of management, when you really do the management, this part of the cost will be compensated for by the reduction of waste in production, the reduction of machine failure rate and the improvement of product qualification rate, and even greatly exceed the required cost.
05
Supervision and inspection
Traditional quality control is narrowly defined as supervision and inspection, which was also the original quality department, and is now the inspection and laboratory under the quality department. In the laws and regulations clearly stipulate that the feed industry needs to have five responsible persons, namely, production, technology, quality, procurement, sales, there must be five independent departments, personnel may not be part-time, the vice president may not also serve as the head of the department, the head of the department may not also do laboratory technicians, laboratory technicians required more than 2, the feed industry to implement the licensing system, do not have the conditions are not permitted. Such requirements, the establishment of enterprises must have the conditions required by the norms, which is also recognized by the state to normalize the production of feed, a company must have the basic conditions: personnel, equipment, processes, plants, inspection and testing, management, etc. I8. Supervision and inspection not only refers to inspection data, but also includes production personnel self-inspection, mutual inspection, quality department on-site quality inspection, sampling inspection, supervision of the competent industry departments and other aspects The quality control carried out in all aspects.
Before production, feed enterprises need to develop product standards, there are national standards can be produced according to national standards, but can also develop enterprise standards, group standards, etc., but no less than the requirements of national standards. Among them, feed additives, etc., because of the variety, more to develop enterprise standards to implement. After the development of standards, according to the standards, norms design production processes, obtain production permits before production, feed additives also need to obtain the approval number. The raw materials used in the production of feed must be in the “Feed Ingredients Catalogue”, the use of feed additives must comply with the Ministry of Agriculture’s Notice No. 2625, the raw materials used and the products produced must comply with the “Feed Hygiene Standards” and the product standards on which they are based.
Feed industry testing projects are mainly factory indicators, generally every batch are tested, all the indicators set in the standard regular type testing, the requirements are generally tested once a year, more than half a year to resume production, process transformation and other circumstances should also be tested once, additive premix feed for vitamins, trace elements and other indicators require two tests every Friday, health indicators in three months to choose five raw materials can be tested 4. Generally enterprises will choose the items to be tested according to the raw materials and products used, and all indicators will be tested in turn, so that the actual data in the product will be mastered after several tests. For the indicator testing must be used in the raw material content of the relevant indicators for testing, with the basic data, you can get the product content through conversion, and then compared with the product testing data, so that in the formulation design, change can be projected to see whether the product meets the requirements, but also the process of advance quality control.
Some of the raw material data changes are relatively large, but in the same manufacturer is generally more stable, so we should be the same raw material produced by different manufacturers to test the data separately, do a good job of data statistics, according to the data from different sources before using the index calculation, so as to avoid changing manufacturers resulting in large changes in data, the stability of the product is also part of the quality control. Some raw materials are high in a certain component, the amount of its use will directly control the product of the indicators of the high and low, such as in the premix raw materials zeolite powder, stone powder and other minerals inside the iron content, different origins of zeolite powder because of its different purity iron content varies greatly, but also because of its low price is used as a dilution carrier, stone powder as calcium raw materials added a large amount, its use is directly related to the final product of iron content, and therefore The product specifications are directly related to the amount used.
Raw material data testing can control the emergence of unqualified products due to raw material problems from the source, in-process data testing can avoid the generation of unqualified semi-finished products in all parts of the process and prevent unqualified semi-finished products from entering the next part of the process, product data testing can control the delivery of unqualified products. Quality control must be carried out at all stages, and one cannot be lacking.
06
Production process and production equipment
For feed production, whether with feed, concentrated feed or premixed feed have relatively fixed production process requirements, the feed mills are also similar, the feed mills are now complete sets of production units, because they must meet the industry, specification requirements, so in the feed mainstream market, the process and equipment is no longer the main constraints. Some products will also have an impact on product quality because of the material of the equipment, such as iron equipment will rust due to salts, moisture and other reasons, affecting product quality, the choice of stainless steel equipment will avoid such problems; there is also the batching process, for the specific gravity of the raw materials differ greatly in the batching should pay attention to the order of ingredients. Some feed additives need to choose a carrier with similar specific gravity to avoid stratification. The same applies to dosing. A reasonable dosing sequence is also necessary. For premixes and other components, the proportion of each component added varies greatly, and homogeneous mixing is very critical, for adding no more than 0.2%, pre-mixing is required. The homogeneity of the mixer and the optimum mixing time of each mixer used need to be measured to ensure that the output product is more than 95% homogeneous (more than 93% is required for units with feed).
07
On-site environment
The site environment can reflect the strength and image of a company, including hardware and software, a good layout to make the production more smooth, tools and facilities positioning, many companies will also implement the “6S”, which is the trend, the feed plant will produce a lot of dust, not timely cleaning, there is a risk of dust explosion, now strict attention to safety and environmental protection In addition, the top to bottom often check and rectify, each enterprise in a timely manner in accordance with the higher and third-party requirements to regulate the site to ensure compliance with safety and environmental protection requirements.

Discussion
The quality control of feed production is mainly the control of each link, only when each link is controlled, the quality of the product will not be a problem. The actual production can also be seen from the quality control formula is the premise, raw materials is the key, management is the guarantee, inspection is the means, each one is indispensable, the output of qualified products, is the result of the above all together.