Stainless Steel Sanitary Valves: CIP System Safety

Do you simply hate washing dishes by hand? It’s a pain that most people aren’t used to based on the fact that many people have a modern dishwasher appliance inside of their kitchen. Who wouldn’t enjoy the convenience of a dishwasher? They do the work for you, leaving your dishes sparkly clean and sanitized, just as good if not better, than if they were thoroughly washed by hand.

Well, when it comes to clean-in-place (CIP) systems and their importance in the food processing world, think of these cleaning systems as a washing machine directly connected to food processing equipment. When fully integrated with a modern automation system, food processing companies and other manufacturing operations can enjoy enhanced production benefits like savings in time and energy costs, less chemical expenditures, increased production capacity, and enhanced product integrity.

The Sanitary Valves And Fittings That Companies Rely On

We’ve covered CIP systems in the past, and for good reason. Chemseal provides the right sanitary stainless steel valves like our sanitary check valves and stainless steel ball valves to ensure that CIP system equipment remains clean and functional. Without our valuable integral fittings, industries wouldn’t be able to safely manufacture products that millions of people consume on a daily basis. To learn more about our work here at Chemseal, go ahead and visit this page. In another blog post about CIP systems, we’re going to take a brief look at CIP safety.

CIP Systems Are Comprehensive And Intricate

A CIP system has a lot going on for itself. Typically, a CIP system is comprised of dedicated equipment for the rinsing, washing and sanitization of the interior surfaces of your process equipment. In CIP systems, you’ll find a range of parts and components including things like tanks, valves, pumps, heat exchangers, chemical dosing equipment, and other process instrumentation.

As such, maintaining and cleaning a CIP system (yes, cleaning systems themselves must also be routinely cleaned!) can be a complicated process, and it is definitely an important one.

Allergenic and Cross-Contamination Concerns

Managing any potential allergic or gluten cross-contamination is one of the top priorities for food processors. Fortunately, an automation system can assist with product scheduling to mitigate these risks, while also optimizing overall production capacity. The order of manufacturing products can be a complicated issue to navigate in order to avoid or prevent any sort of contamination for a food or beverage-based operation, however. This is why CIP matrix editors exist.

CIP Matrix Editors

A CIP matrix editor brings the production and cleaning operation areas together, with all product types being listed in rows and columns. One group defines the previous product run, while the other defines the next scheduled run. The matrix point is the point where each product type meets and defines the cleaning requirements between the previous production run and the scheduled production run. It is imperative that these production requirements are clearly understood and adhered to for a given production batch, as this determines what equipment needs to be washed and how long it needs to be washed for. Production requirements tend to vary depending on what’s being produced.

Maintaining And Assuring Product Quality

During actual production, the automation system uses this CIP matrix data to confirm the validity of the operation. When a production run is initiated, every piece of applicable process equipment is checked to ensure the matrix requirements are met, or if the run is disallowed for any reason. As the gatekeepers of bad product, the production run configuration data is usually maintained and controlled by quality assurance.

We Protect Consumers’ Health Through Sanitary Stainless Steel

Our passion for providing the right ‘fit’ through sanitary stainless steel valves and other sanitary valve fittings is manifested by the numerous industries that Chemseal serves. Discover what our stainless steel butterfly valves and more can do for your fluid process business by shopping our online integral solutions today! 

Oct 16th 2017 Chemseal / Veronica Gonzalez