CIP System: Are You Cleaning Enough or Too Much?

CIP is a fully automated process that takes place within a closed system. Since the process can’t be seen, factory automation provides a food-safe solution. However, according to CIP benchmark data based on Diversey experience, an estimated 75 percent of CIP systems run unvalidated—which means they aren’t fine-tuned and optimized. If a CIP process is not underpinned by a painstaking analysis of all the elements involved, the result will be long cleaning cycles with exaggerated times and chemical concentrations. Without effective parameter data to prove the efficacy of actions, it can be difficult to break free of this vicious cycle.

Assessing whether cleaning is occurring enough—or perhaps even too much—is a challenge many food processing professionals face. Every factory has many data parameters available to inform their conclusions, but it is often scattered across multiple systems and can be difficult to interpret. The lack of a system providing real-time monitoring of cleanliness contributes to the current difficulties of achieving any absolute certainty of hygiene standards.

Harnessing Light and Data

The ideal CIP technology will rigorously challenge an existing system and add new elements that highlight whether traditional parameters have become exaggerated. Applying new technology based on a meticulously defined algorithm and appropriate software—analyzing data from an entire process from start to finish, multiple times—will bring a fresh perspective to an operation. Improvements from this new scientific and statistical methodology can optimize and significantly shorten CIP processes without compromising food safety.

It’s important for food processors to implement an approach that integrates new technology with some traditional elements, such as the use of temperature monitors and timers to control automation. However, the new technology should reveal the details of what really happens with the chemicals. With clearly defined predetermined parameters, food processing professionals can seamlessly weave artificial cleaning intelligence into a traditional process.

Advanced CIP technology is now available to harness the power of light to monitor data. For example, Diversey’s CIPTEC technology uses the UV and infrared light spectrum to monitor CIP systems in real time. A spectrophotometer measures light traveling through the liquids inside the CIP system, measuring the volume of soil and the cleaning chemical level in the final rinse stage to accurately determine how effectively soils were removed. Utilizing this information, along with the conductivity, flow, and temperature during the wash, statistical data analysis methods calculate the optimal regime to eliminate over washing.

Reaping the Benefits of CIP

A collaborative, consultative approach to CIP ensures that if a failure occurs, it will get flagged immediately through a proactive alarm system of feedback. Issues are typically identified within the first month of checking a factory’s data. Once on track with automatic data analysis, a medium to large processing plant can expect a significant return on investment in just a few months. Without the lost production time and revenue associated with unnecessary cleaning, businesses will see increased efficiency, productivity, and cost savings.

The CIP process for hygiene in food safety translates chemistry, resource management, and data analysis into safety and product quality. Continuous remote monitoring helps reduce wash times and enables your business to achieve more efficient and sustainable operations, which is crucial in an industry defined by tight margins and intense competition. With a 24/7 monitored process, including predictive analytics that flag potential issues before they happen, advanced CIP technologies are delivering the future of hygiene to an industry that has held on to traditional methods for reducing food safety risks for too long.

Timmerman is the global sector expert for hygiene solutions at Diversey. Reach him at [email protected].