In hygiene-critical industries such as food & beverage and the Life Sciences, clean-in-place (CIP)-operations provide the cleaning and sterilization required for the products manufactured. This cleaning process is performed on equipment, piping and vessels to assure the level of hygiene required for the next production run.
Emerson’s Marcus Parsons shared with me that food & beverage manufacturers who modernize their CIP processes can significantly reduce cleaning time and consumption of expensive resources, resulting in less waste and more product.
Often manufacturers have manual CIP processes that do not optimally consume water, energy and cleaning chemicals. Adding sensors to monitor flow, density, temperature can verify the correct time, flow rate and temperature profiles. These instruments can also detect interfaces between liquids to reduce changeover time and ensure that correct fluids are used at the proper concentration.
Other key measurements and final controls include level, pressure, acoustic (to monitor steam traps), conductivity, pneumatic valves, angle seat valves, and other pneumatic devices.
Adding these sensors into the automation system enables these resources to be optimized and makes quality information accessible while allowing key performance indicators to be established and used to improve operations.
For one European cheese producer, all the components had to comply with premium standards and endure countless cleaning sequences. The choice of components and their materials were just as important as the use of hygienic components that were easy to service, clean, disinfect, and maintain.
One example is where they used corrosion-resistant, double-acting AVENTICS cylinders from the ISO Clean Line (CCL) series to close the round molds and ensure that the whey is pressed out by applying the appropriate pressure.
Visit the Food & Beverage section on Emerson.com for more on clean in place, sterilize in place and other solutions to drive improved performance in safety, reliability, efficiency and production. You can also connect and interact with other food & beverage industry experts in the Food & Beverage group in the Emerson Exchange 365 community.
