Factors namely the high investment value for purchasing high-quality wood pellet production machines (CAPEX) are often the main obstacle for prospective wood pellet producers. With high-quality machines from A-Z or 100% complete line, production constraints such as quantity and quality of wood pellets can usually be easily overcome so that the goals of the wood pellet business can be achieved. This is because with the 100% complete line configuration, the quality and reliability of the production machine have been tested and provided by one manufacturer, for example a certain brand manufacturer from Europe. This is where it can be said that the performance or performance of the machine with the cost is directly proportional so that the cost to benefit ratio is also expected to be equivalent so that the business remains profitable. Moreover, the need for high-quality wood pellet machines, especially for large capacity production, so that the risk factor of failure can be avoided and minimized.
Then how to achieve machine performance so that production targets (quality and quantity) are also achieved but with a cheaper investment value (CAPEX)? With conditions like this, of course, it is necessary to make an effort to modify the configuration of production machines from other compatible manufacturers or mixed line configurations. As a mixed line configuration, of course, it is necessary to analyze which parts or machines must be maintained with the best quality and which supporting machines can use from other manufacturers. The main machines that have a vital role in wood pellet production such as pelletizers should use high-quality machines while other supporting machines can be of lower quality or functional only so as to maintain the performance of the wood pellet factory's production target. So that in the end, the composition or configuration of the mixed line could be 20% European machines and 80% Asian machines and so on.
In fact, it is not easy to find other compatible machine manufacturers, especially in terms of design factors, and machine quality including performance and durability. This is why it is necessary to consider the track record or success story of the supporting machine manufacturer. If the supporting machine manufacturer has had similar experience before, this will be better, but if not, the risk factor for failure will be greater.
In some real cases in wood pellet production, namely pelletizers have used European brands that have proven their performance quality but the supporting machines are not compatible so that the production target is not achieved, for example, a pelletizer requires 3 tons/hour of dry sawdust input/feeding but the output of the drying machine (rotary dryer) which is the input/feeding to the pelletizer is less than that or only about half. So to be able to get the price of a large capacity production machine with the expected performance so that the production target can be achieved with a "cheap" investment (CAPEX) is indeed not easy but it is possible to try and there have been several success stories that prove it.
