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Industry insights | February 18, 2026 | By Owen Roberts
In some sectors, such as finance, assets are light and mobile. Managers are rewarded for sticking their necks out and making risky decisions…and why not? Without heavy assets to worry about – like a multi-million-dollar feed mill, for example – managers can be in a high-risk game without some of the consequences that come with failure.
But not so for feed mill managers.
Mills are heavy assets, built to last decades. They don’t need routine overhauling or refurbishing. And margins are low. So, managers are rewarded for running efficient and consistent operations throughout the business cycle. Risky decisions can undo years of careful steady management.
Traditionally, mills have chugged along with the most basic inventory management technology, because that’s all that was available or affordable.
However, that’s finally changed, as a result of AI-assisted technology from BinSentry, now in place in hundreds of feed mills in the US and Canada. It’s a huge breakthrough, and it requires careful management, says Kearney Klein, Chief Operating Officer for BinSentry.
“Managers have been rewarded all their working lives for everything but managing change,” says Kearney. “The challenge now is how to switch horses and look at their operation with a fresh set of eyes.”
To Kearney, it’s necessary to go beyond profit-loss statements and corporate boardrooms to understand how businesses are managed, and how to improve their bottom line. “Our ability to provide value for our customers requires our product team to get into the details of how they perform their work around feed management,” he says. “We understand how they manage it, and how they make those decisions.”
To that end, early in his career he spent time on manufacturing shop floors improving efficiency and quality to drive bottom line improvement. Later, working in the agriculture sector driving improvement from soy crush and wheat milling operations, he gained a deep appreciation for the physical challenges all feed mill operators face managing their inventories.
As Kearney explains, from an inventory management perspective, livestock feed is unique, inconsistent in size and moisture content. Working with mill operators and managers, BinSentry found that inconsistency was a huge barrier with monitoring technology. The company addressed the challenge with special cameras placed inside feed bins that are connected to its AI firmware. The firmware decodes what the camera sees to yield clear images from a dusty and chaotic environment inside feed bins.
“That’s our secret sauce,” says Kearney. “Our cameras and firmware overcome a traditional technology barrier.”
In practice, Kearney says BinSentry brings to the table for its customers one step of a very specific problem that the company has grown to understand very well. “Our understanding of that problem puts us in a great position to be a partner to help them navigate what ultimately might be transformative for their businesses,” he says.
Transformation is a huge milestone for a sector like feed mill management that traditionally has emphasized consistency. Kearney recognizes the need for careful transition.
“We’re here to take our customers on that journey, whichever and whatever that looks like for them,” he says. “We’re going to meet them where they are. Their starting points are all different. And because as a company we’re cognizant of the fact that while they’re all in the same industry, they all do things slightly differently. We’re aware of that and our support model is aligned with that mentality.”
Kearney calls this approach “leading with inquiry.” It circles back to his early days, troubleshooting on the shop floor, seeing what the workers see and understanding problems from their perspective. That’s how effective change is managed — from the grassroots up.
Owen Roberts is a past-president of the International Forum for Agricultural Journalism.