Try searching by key words, order- or product code or serial number e.g. “CM442” or “Technical information”
Enter at least 2 characters to start the search.
Introduction

Focus on change

Food security is a global imperative, with many developing nations increasing their demand for processed foods to keep up with their growing populations. In order to maintain their competitiveness, producers must increase their throughput, improve their yields, and minimize their production losses. In short, manufacturers must achieve efficient production in Food & Beverage.

Inline process measurement

How inline process measurement can increase throughput and yield

Process engineers are seeking solutions to lower their costs, be more efficient, and increase their output with existing capabilities, while maintaining product quality. Inline process measurement is one such technology that helps them to meet these objectives. Accurate measurements enable them to implement optimal process control and take the guesswork out of manufacturing. This technology is a powerful tool for improving plant productivity and yield while reducing losses.

Reducing waste

Inline quality measurements are a key factor for reducing waste in the Food & Beverage production environment. If the final product or intermediate stream quality changes negatively, engineers can make immediate adjustments to rectify the trend compared to waiting for lab results. This means that having inline quality instruments gives engineers the time to fix the problem before an entire batch of product goes off-spec.

Reduce expensive resources

Inline process measurements enable engineers to monitor the concentrations in pipelines and makeup tanks to detect overdosing or contamination due to leaking valves. Having this information available enables engineers to optimize their dosing rates, thus minimizing chemical losses while maintaining adherence to health standards and avoiding a compromise of food safety.

Real-time quality control

Measuring quality enables engineers to monitor changes as they add ingredients to a mixture so that they can shut off the ingredient at the optimum point. This leads to lower wastage of additives and ingredients and more precise control of product quality for a consistent consumer experience.

Real-time, inline quality measurement in the Food & Beverage industry

Learn how inline process measurement will help you to reduce plant down time, off-spec product, and time-consuming manual sampling.

Production challenges

Areas affecting Food & Beverage production

As with many other industries, engineers rely on information to generate efficient production in Food & Beverage. Inaccurate information or delayed access to information hampers their ability to drive productivity and improve yields. There can also be product wastage if a warning of quality issues comes too late to take corrective action. Some common areas affecting Food & Beverage production are as follows:

Hold times

Hold time is the period between completing production and obtaining a result from the laboratory. Reducing this time to the minimum could improve the throughput of a production facility substantially.

Variability in product quality

Research shows that product quality can vary between 1 and 5% when relying on laboratory sampling and analysis. Providing real-time quality information could ensure consistent quality performance.

Labor intensive manual sampling

Manual sampling of products for laboratory testing is time consuming. This time could be used for value-added work, such as analyzing data quality to determine what process changes need to be made.

Product losses and waste

Every time a facility changes over from one product to another, there is wastage in the transition. Recipe errors, delays in production and off-spec products are other sources of waste.

Discuss your challenges with our expert

Our local Endress+Hauser experts are ready to support you.

Summary

The essentials in summary

Food & Beverage manufacturing processes have improved over the years from manual systems that relied on an experienced operator to manage production to recipe and time-based systems commonly used today. However, inline process measurement offers even greater benefits that take the guesswork out of plant optimization by providing real-time information to Food & Beverage engineers and operations.

Some questions engineers can ask while evaluating their need for inline process measurements include:

  • How much time is lost taking manual samples and waiting for lab results?
  • What is the impact of this delay on resource usage, wastage, and operating costs?
  • What does that lack of information cost you in terms of lower yield, excess use of resources like energy, raw materials or additives, or lower throughput?
  • Which process in their facility offers the most opportunities for inline process measurement – Raw Material Reception, Storage, Mixing and Blending, or CIP?

Once you have some clarity about your losses and opportunities, you can explore which solutions could offer the greatest benefit. Whichever is the best way forward for your organization, inline process measurement offers benefits that cannot be ignored by providing a window to take a close look into the process.

Inline process measurement helps you achieve efficient production because access to real-time information takes the guesswork out of engineering decisions and enables you to move the productivity needle in your plant.

Related topics

Discover more opportunities where inline measurement can increase productivity