BFM® fitting: How standardised flexible connectors helped Dry Powder Blending company

The Challenge

Flexible connectors of many shapes, sizes, materials and media are often used in the production process. This can cause operational challenges and limit optimisation.

Allicio Nutrition Ltd, a UK-based dry powder blending company, produces around 120 tonnes of nutritional products each week at one of its sites. They have around 35 different flexible connectors across 7 Customer Packed Goods (CPG) and Bulk Blending processing lines.

Regular product changes require a team of 3 to clean the lines between each product blend to avoid cross-contamination. When switching from allergens like dairy, a “full clean” is required. This takes around 4 hours for CPG lines and 12 hours for Bulk lines.

During a full clean, each flexible connector is either removed for cleaning or replaced entirely. The connectors vary in size, shape and material but are mostly secured with jubilee clips that are time consuming to remove and re-attach. This means a large portion of the clean is spent on this activity. For example, on Bulk lines, it takes 2 team members 4 hours.

The jubilee clips provided a poor seal and often led to product leaks, increasing both dust levels and cleaning time. To compensate for potential leakage, an extra 2% of product was regularly added to each batch.

ProSpare’s solution

In 2017, the site reached out to ProSpare, looking to make their process cleaner, safer, and more efficient by using BFM® fitting. BFM® fitting offers a dust-tight seal via a wide range of standardised BLUEBAND™ connectors and specially formed spigots, streamlining inventory and simplifying changes.

Over 8 years, ProSpare and Allicio have worked together to upgrade 25+ connection points to BFM® fitting. The Safety, Health, and Environment Coordinator told us:

“BFM® fitting has improved health and safety on site. At one point, our staff were required to wear masks due to dust levels. I’d say BFM® has directly contributed to the team no longer being required to wear masks.

Standardising our flexible connectors has helped massively. BFM® is far quicker to changeover. It takes a quarter of the time to change BFM® connectors compared to ones with jubilee clips and only requires 1 staff member [instead of 2] – freeing the other staff to just focus on cleaning and reduce the time it takes.

Time we spend cleaning, we aren’t making money so reducing how long this takes is critical. There are no product leaks where BFM® is installed, further reducing cleaning time. Also, because there’s no leaks, we no longer add extra product into the batch.”

The Seeflex 040E connector was one of the first installed around 6 years ago and is still in great working condition. This success was the catalyst for a wider rollout.

The previous breather and connector on the sieve did not seal effectively, resulting in regular product leaks and 4.5 hours cleaning each week. With BFM® breathers and connectors, there’s no product leakage, cutting cleaning to 1 hour a week.

The hoppers under the sieve connect to filling machines that move up and down to adapt to different packaging sizes. With a 3:1 compression ratio, BFM® ‘flexi’ connectors adjust to required lengths, whilst still providing a 100% dust-tight seal.

Allicio are next looking to upgrade the Bulk Blending lines with BFM® fitting Bulk Bag Loaders.

For more information, contact ProSpare Ltd – UK distributor for BFM® fitting:
Visit –   www.prospare.co.uk
e-mail – sales@prospare.co.uk
call –    01773 814008