Process Food, Beverages, or Other Liquids? Here’s How to Reduce Changeover Times

Liquid product recovery (“pigging”) systems are used by companies that process liquids or wet products.

The technology recovers residual product from process piping. This increases product yield and reduces waste.

Another major benefit of pigging is that it significantly reduces changeover times in the process industries.

Changeovers in Liquid Processing

Companies that process liquids often use the same pipeline to process different varieties, types, and flavours of product. This has resulted in shorter production runs, and more frequent changeovers.

During changeovers (the process of converting a line from one product to another), usable product is often wasted. This is due to the pipeline needing to be cleaned before the next product can be processed, to remove all traces of product, water, and other possible contaminants.

Changeovers can also be resource-intensive and time consuming, using large amounts of water, cleaning agents and energy.

And the more changeovers there are, the more downtime there is. This equates to a drop in productivity, efficiency, and revenue.

That’s why many manufacturers are implementing technologies such as pigging to reduce downtime and make changeovers as quick as possible.

Pigging Systems for Process Industries

Pigging systems are being increasingly adopted in hygienic and sanitary environments.

The technology is used in manufacturing everything from food and beverages, to paints, coatings, detergents, cosmetics, confectionery, pet foods, lubricants, chemicals, and many other liquids.

So, how exactly does pigging reduce changeover times?

In the process industries, whenever a liquid is transferred along a pipe, there’s nearly always product residue remaining in the pipe. This product needs to be removed before the next product can be processed.

In many applications, clean-in-place (CIP) is used to prepare the pipeline for the next product.

CIP and pigging go hand-in-hand. Pigging systems recover nearly all the residual liquid from the pipe. Due to the high recovery rates of HPS pigs, there’s much less requirement for time-consuming and resource intensive flushing and CIP.

Although pigging systems will not eliminate the need for CIP completely, they will shorten the process considerably. Sometimes, pigging can eliminate the need for a preliminary rinse, and reduce the rest of the CIP cycle.

How Pigging Works

Pigging systems use a specialist projectile (the ‘pig’), which, during changeovers or cleaning, is propelled through the pipe used to transport a liquid.

The pig has an interference fit with the pipe. This enables the pig to push out nearly all the residue from the pipeline to its destination.

Importantly, instead of pipes being left full of residual liquid at the end of transfer batches, a pigging system reclaims the residual product.

So, companies will spend significantly less time on flushing their pipelines with water before proceeding with the cleaning.

In certain circumstances, it’s even possible to follow on with the next product following the pigging sequence. This eliminates the requirement for flushing completely.

Applications that Don’t Use Water

For applications that don’t use water as part of the cleaning process, pigging is still an effective way to reduce changeover times.

Some applications dismantle the processing equipment to clean it. In addition, during changeovers, some applications may have an initial run-off period for the new product.

With a pigging system, nearly all the product is recovered from the line. So, changeovers and cleaning are much faster. Also, the chances of cross-contamination are greatly reduced.   

Additional Benefits of Pigging

Reducing changeover times isn’t the only reason manufacturers are implementing pigging systems. That’s because pigging delivers a wide range of benefits.

This includes increased yields and capacity, reduced waste, increased efficiency, better margins, improved sustainability plus much more.

And importantly for just about every company that processes a liquid, pigging delivers high return in investment and fast payback.

Improve Your Processes Today!

Pigging systems are simple and cost effective.  

If you are interested in speeding up changeovers and reducing downtime through pigging and liquid product recovery solutions, contact HPS.

E: info@hps-pigging.com

T: +44 (0) 115 925 4700 W: www.HPS-Pigging.com