What are Toll Processing Services?
Tolling Processing Services is an agreement between a toller (manufacturer) and a company to process raw materials or near-finished goods for a predetermined fee in exchange. This is also referred to as a “toll” or “tolling fee.” Toll processing is a universal term but can also be referred to as toll manufacturing, contract manufacturing, and a “toll manufacturer.” Toll processing services are ideal for companies looking for extra capacity, developing new products, or making their current process more efficient and providing higher yields and profits.
How to Select the Right Toll Processing Company
Selecting the perfect partner to help you streamline your business and scale up is critical to your success. When searching for the perfect match, here are a few things you should look out for:
1. A Team of Professionals
Your number one priority when searching for a toll processing company to process your raw materials should be to select a team of professionals whose goal is to ultimately act as an integral part of the success of your business. The company you choose to work with should give you confidence in its ability to operate efficiently on your behalf with minimal supervision. The tolling company should simplify your processes and help you reduce your risk, give you a competitive advantage, and add value to your bottom line. Remember that your processor is the final link in the chain between you and your end customer. That is why the next point is critical to your success.
2. Review quality control
This is an essential part of the process because you want to ensure that the toll processor continuously makes adjustments and improvements to their operations and facilities to avoid contamination, overweight or underweight packaging, off-spec material, late shipments, etc. It also helps tremendously to call the main line and speak to a human at all times, not a machine.
3. Visit the plant
This is the most important element when selecting which company you want to work with. We strongly encourage our clients to visit our plant whenever possible. This is an excellent idea because it will give you a complete picture of what goes on inside the plant where your raw materials will likely be for an extended period during processing. Before a plant visit, we offer our clients a feasibility test to review their need, goals and expectations. A full-day plant tour is typical at Elcan while running numerous tests and scenarios for our potential clients until we get their end product down to the same quality and spec they are looking for. This not only applies for our advanced toll sieving services, but our other services as well which include mixing and blending, milling, deagglomeration, contract packaging, magnetic separation and more.
What are Some of The Benefits of Using a Tolling Processing Service?
There are several benefits to using a toll processor for their powder materials and other products:
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They have specialized equipment and expertise for certain types of toll processing, which can result in a higher quality product.
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They can handle large volumes of products, which can benefit manufacturers with high production needs.
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They can take on the responsibilities of packaging, labeling, and distribution, allowing manufacturers to focus on other aspects of their business.
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They can provide cost savings by using economies of scale to produce products at a lower cost.
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They allow manufacturers to quickly scale up or down their production as needed.
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They can be a good option for companies with limited space or resources for processing.
What separates us from other toll processors is that we run the screening and sieving equipment that we sell in our factory every day to toll process materials. This daily usage has given Elcan extensive experience that is invaluable to our customers. Toll processing services at Elcan allow customers to meet surges in demand and to develop new products without being capitally committed. For customers looking to purchase equipment, contract manufacturing allows them to prove out the process on a large scale before purchasing and installing machinery.
The combination of advanced technology and proven techniques provide solutions to even the most difficult-to-screen products. This Elcan advantage makes separations that are simply not achievable on vibratory or ultrasonic sieving equipment. Our screening machines produce higher yields and cleaner cuts over air classifiers as well.
Our toll processing plant has a laboratory on-site for immediate feedback on the processing. The lab includes size measurement analysis including a Malvern Mastersizer 3000 (wet and dry), jet sieves, and multiple ROTAPS systems for sieve analysis. The PSD reporting is included with any tolling services and Elcan often runs feed analysis for companies to confirm supplier PSDs.
About Elcan Industries Tolling Processing Services:
Since our inception in 1993, Elcan Industries has focused on finding catered solutions to any screening and sieving problems that companies may be experiencing. We pride ourselves on doing the jobs that other sieving companies cannot do. We are always open to trying any particle separation, no matter how obscure, or difficult it may seem. We have always focused on selling only the most advanced screening technologies available on the market. We have the ability to screen material from 10 mm to 10 um and have achieved efficiencies of 95% and up at all of these sizes.
