The largest cottonseed cooperative that serves the southern United States with over 50 member gins produces cottonseed oil and valuable cottonseed meal, hull, and linter byproduct at its cottonseed oil mill in west Texas.

Delinting, a critical phase in producing cottonseed oil, is where whole seed transferred via screw and drag conveyors from holding tanks to a delinting room is cleaned to discard excess debris and cut with saws to remove remaining lint left from the gin. The exposed clean seed, commonly known as black seed, is then moved throughout the rest of the production process to have hulls removed and oil extracted.

To keep up with the increasing demand for cottonseed-based products, the company expanded mill operations by building a new delinting room. If the new delinting room’s screw and drag conveyor drive systems were to use components sourced from multiple suppliers, each would have to be built on-site—requiring two maintenance technicians 3 hours to assemble each and them to spend more on both materials and labor.