Newsletter Archive
Building and improving your cooperativeHeart to Heart, July 2010 Connectionsby Jim Magnuson The wet weather through mid June has only marginally impacted our major construction projects. Fortunately, most of the excavation and backfill was completed at the Newton Rail terminal site during a rare dry period. The site is well rocked with good drainage, so the wet weather should not delay progress too much. Construction of the new wet bin at S-14 is done and much of the conveying equipment is assembled and ready to put in place. Plans to enlarge the receiving pit at Zearing are complete. Much of this project will be done by our own concrete and millwright crew. A project to improve wet corn handling and allow "round the clock" corn drying at LeGrand is also in process.
The Board of Directors also approved an upgrade of receiving conveyors at the Newton elevator location. Conveyors to 690,000 bushels of storage and the 1.0 million bu bunker were undersized and created a bottleneck at harvest. The new project will upgrade conveyors to 15,000 bushels per hour allowing continuous, full capacity utilization of both dump pits and continuous grain drying. It will also allow much faster loading of the bunker reducing weather risk. The existing conveyors at Newton are still in good condition and are of the appropriate size to be used in several other projects.
The Board of Directors has also approved another upgrade of the capacity of the Grinnell Feed Mill. Volume at the mill continues to grow and we continue to receive strong support from our livestock producer customers. The new project will increase the annual capacity of the mill to nearly 500,000 tons. This represents utilization of over 10 million bushels of locally produced corn annually. The annual corn production of Poweshiek County is about 30 million bushels. Your feed team has developed strong business relationships with our customers that continue to provide growth opportunities for feed production and improve local markets for grain. The growth of the feed business also provides good jobs and steady growth in employment benefiting our local communities.
Also approved was the acquisition of a new bulk fuels delivery truck. This will be a unique vehicle with much greater capacity and delivery efficiency than our current fleet. The chassis will have multiple axels, much like some of the large dump trucks or milk tanker trucks seen on the road today. Energy Department Manager, Lynn Sheets, notes the trip from the cooperative’s bulk storage tank to the customer is the most expensive part of the fuel delivery system. Providing quality products and an efficient delivery system is the name of the game in providing customers with the greatest value.
Frankly, it is a lot of fun talking about the projects and progress of your cooperative. None of this, however, would be possible without the great employees of Key Cooperative and the continuing support of you, our customers. We are continually mindful of our obligation to provide customer value in every transaction and in every customer contact. Our new tag line – Connect. Build. Grow. is a constant reminder that our success is connected to your success; that our business must be built on a sound footing of customer service and personal integrity; and that we will grow together with our customers, our communities and our employees. Thank you for your continuing support of Key Cooperative.
In The New Reality, author Karl Schoemer (www.vqsolutions.com) writes about dealing with CHANGE. "Bring a sense of adventure to work each day. Make your reputation on how quickly you adapt. Question your resistance. Don’t hold on to the old way. Don’t waste precious energy digging in. Be the first to try. Fix it on the fly."
Jim Magnuson is the General Manager for the Heart of Iowa Coop. He can be reached at 515-388-4341 or 641-594-4115 xt 106, or by e-mail at jmagnuson@scecoop.com.
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
