AirSweep Material Flow Aids Decrease Flush Time, Labor, and Costs
Company saves $200,000 from flush material reduction alone
A large U.S. manufacturer of food, food ingredients and flavor products uses ribbon blenders for custom blending of ingredient batches. Each batch must contain specific amounts of ingredients such as spices and other seasonings to comply with the customer’s proprietary recipes. To clean the blenders between batches, they used a flushing routine which involved manually loading flour into the blenders, running the equipment for a set amount of time, and then emptying the equipment of all the flour and stray ingredients.
Problem
With manufacturing facilities in 25 different countries across the globe, the company was interested in improving the flushing process between the custom batches of ingredients. The company was looking to decrease the flushing time for the ribbon blenders, hopefully leading to a decrease in labor, saving money.
Solution
The company installed eight AirSweep VA-12-TRI-TRI units on a trial basis on a ribbon blender and associated hoppers to help streamline their flushing process. Four units were placed on each side of the blender, approximately 1 foot (0.3 m) above the bottom. The Tri-Clamp mount system allows for installation and removal of the nozzle from the process vessel in seconds, without tools, for fast change-out of components or cleaning/sanitizing. AirSweep Tri-Clamp models are manufactured from 316 stainless steel making them ideal for food processing applications.
Result
The company experienced a 62% reduction in flour flush and 42% reduction in labor, all directly attributed to the AirSweep units. Cost savings from flush material reduction alone was around $200K.
Customer states: “Pretty awesome little devices!”
