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
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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