Seagate Feed Station Producing Great Results
Innovation and technological investments in Port Hardy’s Seagate Feed Station at the beginning of the year is already producing great benefits for Mowi Canada West and staff members.
Roger Stagg, a Feed Supervisor at Seagate along with Mike Stoskopf, notes the feed station was expanded to the Seagate Pier in January. It was set up with four feeding stations, and the crew will be expanding to feed four sites once new
Quinsam Communications, ScaleAQ and Rogers communication towers are completed. It is currently feeding Doyle Island and Marsh Bay, although Robertson Island was fed to harvest in the past.
“The result of having this feed office is that there are little to no lost feed days due to extreme weather on high energy sites,” says Roger. “It seems that others are impressed with the technology that we are using and they are looking forward to having us feed their sites,” Roger adds.
Also, we have cameras set up so we can monitor site and staff to ensure that everything and everyone is safe.
“A centralized feed office also provides consistent feeding where we are able to focus on feeding alone, without the distractions of other issues that can pop up on the sites. The feed office also frees up site staff to focus on all the other aspects of the job, without having to have a person feed for the entire day.”
Roger has been with the company since 1997, starting at Cleagh Creek in the Quatsino area. He was an Assistant Manager at Duncan Island before arriving at the feed office in March.
Mike has been with Mowi for 15 years, and has worked at most of the sites in the Port Hardy and Quatsino areas. He was Assistant Manager at Shelter Pass before starting off the feed office at the Omega dock in April, 2019.
Jason Saunders is Operations Manager in Port Hardy, and for the past two months has served as Interim Production Manager for the Port Hardy area. He has been with Mowi since 1997. He notes that Port Hardy Production Manager Riley McFadyen was the main driver behind getting the remote feed station started.
“With being able to feed from the remote station it has eliminated many missed feed days due to weather,” Jason observes. “It has added to production because it frees up staff members onsite all day to be able to do onsite work, and offers consistent feeding because having the remote feed station allows the crews to focus on feeding only, where onsite feeding has many distractions.”
Jason states that other areas of the company are beginning to move in this same direction as well.
“The technology behind this was a huge benefit for the Port Hardy area, allowing our crews to focus on the day to day tasks onsite,” he says. “Improving safety was a major reason behind this project, as it has eliminated our crews travelling in some unfavorable weather conditions, as Port Hardy sees the worst weather around the coast.”