Success Story: How Integral Spoked Sectional Flighting Simplified Auger Assembly for a Grain Cleaner OEM

For feed mill manufacturers, productive manufacturing and consistent quality are essential. When an OEM in Amarillo, Texas, needed a better way to assemble augers for a cattle feed grain cleaner, they turned to Falcon Industries for a solution.

By switching from a traditional flight assembly to our integral spoked sectional flighting, the customer simplified production, reduced labor requirements, and improved product consistency.

The Challenge: A Time-Consuming “Christmas Tree” Flight Assembly

The customer contacted Falcon looking for ways to improve the flighting used in a grain cleaner for cattle feed. Their traditional “Christmas tree style” flight assembly required many components, including separate spoke rods, extra machining, and multiple employees to position and weld the pieces together.

This labor-intensive process was time-consuming and made it difficult to keep consistent inside and outside diameters and pitch. The multiple assembly steps also increased the potential for quality issues. The customer needed a simpler, more streamlined solution that would reduce labor and improve consistency.

Falcon’s Solution: Integral Spoked Sectional Flighting

After reviewing the customer’s application, our team recommended integral spoked sectional flighting, a design that incorporates support spokes directly into the ribbon flight profile.

As opposed to traditional assemblies that require separate support rods, integral spoked flighting features built-in spokes, eliminating the need to fabricate and attach these components individually.

This design offers several advantages:

• Simplified assembly: Integrated spokes eliminate separate support components and reduce welding requirements.
• Reduced labor: One employee can assemble the flighting, rather than requiring multiple workers.
• Improved consistency: Once the flighting is snapped onto the center shaft, the design helps maintain the required OD, ID, and pitch dimensions.
• Customizable configurations: Spoke widths, lengths, and spacing can be made for specific applications, including arrangements with spokes every 90 or 120 degrees.

Our team developed an approval drawing showing the proposed integral spoked pattern. After reviewing the design, the customer placed their first order.

The Results: Less Labor, Greater Consistency

By switching to integral spoked sectional flighting, the customer simplified assembly, reduced labor, and improved production efficiency. With fewer components and less welding, the team could assemble augers faster and with fewer employees.

The integrated design also helped keep consistent dimensions, improving product quality and lowering the potential for assembly errors. The success of the initial order led to many repeat orders over the years, demonstrating the solution’s long-term value for our customer.

Improve Your Auger Assembly with Custom Sectional Flighting

Sometimes, a simple design change can greatly improve manufacturing efficiency. Whether you’re looking to reduce assembly time, improve consistency, or develop custom flighting for a specialized application, our team can help.

Contact Falcon Industries to discuss your application and learn how our custom sectional flighting solutions can improve your manufacturing process.