How to design equipment for dairy production

This part of the guide will be on guidelines to consider for factories that design and build equipment for food processing and especially milk production. Whenever there is food involved, there is also always the question of hygiene. It is important to focus on hygiene. In this part of our guide, we have gathered a few guidelines that are relevant to follow for companies that design equipment for sanitary food processing. All kinds of manufacturers of food processing equipment can benefit from these principles. However, we will – just as in the rest of the guide – focus on milk production. One of these principles is the compatibility between the milk – the product – and then the material of the milking equipment, the cleaning procedures and chemicals and the general environment. The material of the equipment needs to be compatible with the rest of the environment – it cannot have a negative reaction or compromise the quality of the milk when it gets in touch with it. Thus, the materials need to be resistant to absorption and corrosion as well as being non-porous, like the IP67 Bearings.

 

It is important to make maintenance and cleaning smooth

It is crucial that the different operators of the equipment – the production workers, inspectors and cleaners – can access all the different parts of the machinery or milking equipment. All parts must be easily accessible and available for a set of different purposes. One purpose might be cleaning. Cleaning staff should have easy access to clean the equipment, and the authorities (who are tasked with the job of inspecting the equipment to check that it is safe or hygienic) should have equally smooth access. Ideally, all these different kinds of professionals need to be able to get perfectly easy access to the equipment without the use of tools. For the design of the equipment, this means that the equipment including all the different parts should be easy to disassemble for cleaning and then reassemble. The better access to the equipment for different professionals, the easier it is to conform to the hygienic protocols that the milk farm industry needs to meet.

 

Be sure that the machinery is liquid-free

When we write about designing machinery and equipment so that it is liquid-free, what we mean is that it should not be possible for liquids to be collected in any kind of place in the equipment. The machinery and the equipment should be “self-draining”. Why do we have to avoid liquids? Because liquids are a breeding ground for bacteria and micro-organisms. If the liquid is collected somewhere, and there is no movement in the liquid (it is not removed), it is a point of growth for bacteria.

 

Design the equipment in a way so that bacteria have no place to hide

It is ever so important that when companies design food processing equipment, they have to design it with the least possible space left for bacteria to hide, live or thrive. This is why it is important to choose components for the equipment that have been designed to be hygienic. It does not matter what machinery part it is – the feet, the conveyor parts or the bearings.

This was our short guide on hygiene in milk production – how to avoid contamination risks. We hope it was helpful.