Pharmaceutical CIP
A Sealpump Engineering Case Study
"Shower Gel & cosmetic creams manufacturer improves process cleanliness & lost production through less downtime with automated clean in place system."
Issue:
A large manufacturer of shower gels, shampoos and cosmetic creams for many high profile brand names was spending a considerable amount of time manually cleaning out their mixing and holding tanks which resulted in long periods of down time and costly lost production.
They were being cleaned after every product changed which involved 2 or 3 staff with pressure washers cleaning the internals of the three tanks, which were approx. 5 metre diameter by 8 metres high. This was a very labour intensive job and over the course of each week led to a great deal of down time.
Another issue they had was being able to consistently guarantee a thorough clean, this was very important because avoiding any cross contamination of product was vital.
Solution:
Each of the three tanks had a central agitator with 2 sets of blades, meaning that not only the internal walls had to be cleaned but also all parts of the shaft and agitator blades. Sealpump provided a solution for all three tanks which included a jetting rotating wash head on an insertion lance with a flange connection for securing the unit to the tank during cleaning. This unit was inserted through two ports either side of the agitator to deal with potential shadows created by the agitator shaft. This arrangement cleaned the tanks well; it also cleaned the upper surfaces of the blades.
We then installed separate wash heads which we attached to side of the tanks slightly below the agitator blades; this was to clean the upper surfaces and undersides of the blades. This wall mounted head was a self-cleaning design, which meant that when the vessel was filled with product, it would not affect the workings of the spray head when cleaning was needed.
The control of the wash cycles were controlled by one main control panel, located with the other tank controls, meaning that an operator at the end of a batch can easily select which tank needs cleaning and in what order. Each tank could be controlled independently from the same panel.
This complete system enabled the customer to reduce the down time created through manual cleaning and also increased the quality and repeatability of cleaning.
