Key points
From farm to factory to fork, food products can encounter multiple health hazards during their journey through the supply chain. Without proper tools like Clean in Place (CIP) systems, food-processing errors can occur, leading to product recalls. Besides eroding consumer confidence, recalls are costly.
A recent Food Marketing Institute and Grocery Manufacturers Association study states that the average recall amounts to $10 million in indirect costs, not to mention the negative impact on the corporate brand.
Although indispensable, traditional CIP systems come with some inefficiencies that can impact plant profitability and sustainability.
For example, a CIP system can consume as much as 20% of the total utility energy resource in some operations. Fortunately, today’s IoT enabled CIP systems can help improve efficiency and control these costs, significantly boosting a plant’s financial performance and reducing its carbon footprint.
Multi-site access to data delivers breakthrough efficiency improvements in Clean in Place operations
Industrial IoT technology is helping to drive much higher efficiency levels in food and beverage operations. New IoT software and platforms offer manufacturers greater access to real-time analytics and business KPIs, giving them visibility across multiple plant sites, from shopfloor to top floor.
What’s more, the pre-packaged IoT solutions now on the market make it even easier and cheaper to take advantage of this new level of data insight.
With plug and play solutions such as Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Plant Advisor – Clean in Place (formerly called (OptiCiP) combined with CIP Global View (built on EcoStruxure Plant Advisor App Builder), manufacturers can gain superior data access, consolidation, analysis, decision support, and benchmarking across multiple sites, without implementing an entirely new engineering project.
This then allows them to better address challenges such as contamination prevention, production delays, resource consumption and regulatory compliance.
Better equip CIP operators and plant managers to improve operations
Insights can help to reduce process equipment cleaning times, which decreases overall energy consumption. By also improving CIP event sequence traceability, operators can more quickly find out which equipment was cleaned, when and for how long, and how much water and chemicals were used. This means that operational decisions impacting profitability and sustainability can be made much faster.
Gaining better access to a much wider pool of CIP operational data means the resources consumed to maintain safe operation can be reduced, further driving down a plant’s operating costs as well as its environmental impact.
Increasing their ability to control CIP quality and performance remotely across geographically distributed sites makes the company-wide CIP process more consistent. This drives benefits across all sites and the ability to gather real-time data for trend analysis facilitates continuous improvement of CIP operations.
Leverage an IIoT multi-site solution to get ahead of the competition
For manufacturers, improved traceability of their Clean in Place operations translates to cost savings, increased sustainability, and better customer service. Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Plant Advisor – Clean in Place combined with CIP Global View is the only multi-site solution with the foundational capabilities of IT/OT convergence and an open, scalable IIoT platform.
This provides the ability to better manage CIP performance data through simple aggregation, contextualisation, and multi-site visibility.
This enables food and beverage plants not only to reduce operational cleaning time, but also to reduce water, chemical and energy use across multiple plants, resolve incidents faster, and simplify food safety compliance procedures with advanced traceability of cleaning processes and easy access to compliance documentation.
This means manufacturers can achieve rapid Return on Investment (ROI)and gain the edge on the competition.
The vital role of CIP IIoT solutions in sustainability and reputation
Implementing these solutions effectively is key to constructing a strong reputation. Demonstrating commitment to sustainability can lead to consumer trust and loyalty, which are fundamental to success and strengthening consumer relationships. This ultimately leads to increased profitability and an enhanced public image.
CIP IIoT multi-site solutions are integral building blocks for food and beverage manufacturers to develop the most efficient systems available. By optimising resources, minimising environmental impact, ensuring compliance, reducing waste, driving continuous improvement, and ultimately strengthening consumer trust, the solutions can help to create sustainable and profitable operations that are future-proof.
