The HIM 2.0 and its precision fertilizer blending (PFB) capabilities are no exception. A pair of synchronized, overlapping paddles keeps all particles moving during the blending process, eliminating the “dead zones” that would otherwise occur. The gentle motion also reduces the risk of particle damage, something that’s especially important with newer polymer-coated fertilizers and micronutrients that are sensitive to degradation.
And by maximizing particle contact, the design allows lower volumes of nitrogen stabilizer and other liquid additives to be applied, reducing costs while improving additive efficiency. The result is a blender purpose-built for the precision the 4Rs require: accurate ratios, uniform distribution, and minimal waste.
<h2>Making Connections</h2>
The NORD partnership didn’t begin with the HIM 2.0 project, however—by the time the redesigned blender came off the drawing board, Sackett-Waconia had been specifying NORD gearmotors across most of its equipment lines since 2021. Assisted by Adam Reynolds, NORD’s District Sales Manager for their territory, Sackett-Waconia’s engineering team evaluated and ultimately selected NORD—known in the industry for its German-engineered industrial drives with U.S. manufacturing headquarters in Waunakee, Wisconsin—as their primary drive supplier. Driven by a shared commitment to meet customer expectations, the initial adoption of NORD’s products has matured into a deeply rooted partnership, marked by years of strategic alignment and mutual success.
There’s also myNORD, the company’s online drive selection, quoting, ordering, and tracking portal. Customers can size, spec, and price drives themselves, with 3D STEP files delivered at any point in the design process. “Sackett-Waconia’s engineering team is self-sufficient on myNORD and has been pretty much since the beginning of the relationship,” Reynolds says. “It’s a great resource for them, just as it is for all of our customers.”
<h2>First Steps</h2>
Early in that relationship, Sackett-Waconia chose its first NORD job strategically: Gromark, a fertilizer facility in Amherst Junction, Wisconsin, located close to NORD’s Waunakee plant. Because the customer’s primary concern was service after the sale—what would happen if a drive went down—proximity to replacement parts answered the question directly. The result was a near-complete conversion to NORD across the site; the only holdout was the HIM mixer itself, which had not yet been redesigned.
Other projects soon followed, and by the time HIM 2.0 was ready for production, Sackett-Waconia was using NORD drives in virtually all system designs, many of them protected with NORD’s NSD4+ coating. Says Reynolds, “We coat the entire gearbox and motor with a corrosion-resistant paint, a step that’s especially important in the fertilizer industry with its harsh chemical environment.”
The new blender’s first large-scale implementation was for a customer at the Port of Rosedale, a Mississippi terminal where more than twenty NORD gear drives now run across the site’s receiving, conveying, and blending operations. An all-electric E-crane that Barnes describes as “pretty cool in its own right” pulls urea, potash, ammonium phosphate, and other fertilizer components off river barges at 600 tons per hour (TPH). It’s then fed through a lump buster and carried up more than 1,000 feet of conveyors into the main building, every one of them direct drive.
Bucket elevators powered by 125-horsepower NORD MAXXDRIVE industrial gear units then lift the material to storage bins above matching blend towers, where it’s gravity-fed through weigh hoppers into the HIM 2.0 mixers below. Since either tower can operate as a straight wholesale loadout when demand is steady, or both can blend simultaneously when volume picks up, the arrangement provides a balance of flexibility and throughput.
<h2>Beyond Performance</h2>
When asked what the new system delivers in terms of increased throughput or operating cost, Halscheid provides a surprising answer. “Performance is important, but it’s not the game changer here,” he says. “If you need 50 horsepower to rotate a shaft, you’ll get that with anyone’s drive unit. NORD’s direct drive package delivers on other, more tangible fronts—a simpler design, fewer parts to manufacture, easier assembly, commissioning, and maintenance, and perhaps most importantly, safer operation.”
Barnes agrees, noting that longevity and predictability are equally important. “We’re running NORD drives across roughly a dozen sites now, and over three to four years, we haven’t had a single gearbox failure. A motor here or there, maybe, but not a gearbox.”
That kind of reliability matters as fertilizer dealers face increasing pressure to deliver more precise blends, faster turnarounds, and predictable uptime through the planting and harvest seasons. The HIM 2.0, paired with a top-to-bottom NORD direct drive package, gives them a system designed for those expectations—not just at startup, but for the long years of corrosive, around-the-clock operation that follow.