Farmers Review Africa July/Aug 2016 | Page 24

Market Information Endress+Hauser provides increased quality with inline measurements Reduce production down time, off-spec product and time-consuming manual sampling in food plants with inline instrumentation Food plant managers are faced with many challenges today. Depending on the product being made, they may have to meet the requirements of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), European Union (EU), and an alphabet soup of other agencies and regulations. These regulations specify proper ingredients, chemical and biological hazards, procedures and sanitary conditions. Food plant managers also have to meet the expectations of consumers for proper taste and texture. On top of the obvious food safety and product quality challenges, a plant manager also needs to address operational issues and goals such as product loss reductions and the need to reduce operating and maintenance costs. C u r r e n t l y, f o o d p l a n t s r e l y o n l a b o ra t o r y a n a l y s i s o f s a m p l e s collected manually to ensure product quality at various points in a process. Lab technicians periodically grab a sample, hurry back to the lab for a quick analysis, and communicate the result to plant personnel. Operators and maintenance personnel then make adjustments and corrections to try to improve control of the process. The challenge with relying on lab analyses is that it's not done in real time. It is also time-consuming and labour intensive and the possibility for manual errors exits. If it takes 30 minutes to grab a sample and analyse July - August 2016 it, then the result represents where the process was 30 minutes ago. The result could be a spoiled batch. If the measurement had been done inline, a sudden deviation would be detected, allowing for instant corrective action that could save the batch. Taking samples from the process for analysis in the plant's lab is the tried-andtrue method for ensuring quality control. It's also expensive and not a real-time measurement [24]FARMERS REVIEW AFRICA Instrumentation can be used for online quality control to enable immediate corrective actions, and supplement or replace laboratory testing. Inline analysers are nowadays available for many of the common measurements being performed in labs. Using inline analysers helps management deal with many issues. For example, the amount of disinfectant used on a hydro cooker for canned food needs to be closely controlled to ensure food safety, as overdosing can cause corrosion and waste of chemicals, while too little can compromise food safety. Inline analysers can also help cut expenses, helping save on huge amounts on chemical costs. By measuring phase separation between the product, water and CIP detergent in the line, operators were able to determine when the prerinse and CIP are complete, instead of relying on timing and lab measurements. This translates into savings on