A previously unreported approach to optimize the time of an industry scale mixing operation for best filling performance, while ensuring premix uniformity, is tested. Mixing a base metal powder with a lubricant facilitates compacting and ejecting of powder compacts. However, the quality of lubricant admixing directly influences premix flowability and, therefore. the die filling performance of the premix. Insufficient lubricant admixing leads to non-uniform lubricant distribution, while excessive mixing, - to segregation or flowability degradation. Approximately 1.5 metric tons of a powder mix based on FL 4405 and a lubricant containing lithium compounds are mixed in a double cone blender. The optimum mixing time is estimated using a set of powder rheology measurements. It is then validated through conventional premix flowability and uniformity tests including Hall flowrate and burn-off-based probing of lubricant distribution, respectively. A streamlined subset of the performed characterization steps for the optimization of other premix formulations is proposed. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.