Food Manufacturing - May/June 2018

Because food plants are under immense pressure to find and retain skilled labor to perform sanitation and cleaning, technology that can automate tedious cleaning processes is the future of food processing. With that in mind, expect to see more food manufacturers automating their sanitation processes as a solution to today’s tight labor market and ensuring the safety and cleanliness of their facilities and products.

If you haven’t considered automating your cleaning and sanitation processes, there’s no better time than now. Automation can help you tackle concerns such as a shortage of skilled labor, rising costs of doing business, a growing population with a growing demand for food, a need to reduce water use and avoiding public health outbreaks. Most facilities see a return on their investment in sanitation equipment within a year to 18 months.

Though automating your facility’s sanitation may seem daunting, here’s some important advice for devising a strategy that helps you identify the right steps to take from the beginning.

1. Conduct A Sanitation
Evaluation

You won’t be able to develop a road
map towards implementing automated
solutions until you identify where you are
and where you need to go. That’s why
you must start by assessing your current
sanitation practices.

You’ll need to get a gauge on the resources being used: people, chemistry, water usage and time. How safe is your plant during sanitation? How efficient is the crew carrying out regular procedures? Are there areas where you could be saving time and resources?

It can be extremely valuable to get an outside expert’s opinion on sanitation processes in your plant. A consultant who specializes in this area can conduct a thorough evaluation, often spending several days observing procedures and monitoring staff while noting areas for improvement. Then, the best solutions for automating cleaning and sanitation will emerge.

2. Identify Hot Spots

There is always room for improvement when it comes to food safety. An expert consultant will frequently identify “hot spots” in your plant. These are the areas where the risk of contaminations is highest.

Harborage areas for bacteria and
places where pests may arise require
extra attention during sanitation. Perhaps
the most important benefit of automating
the sanitation process is how it creates a
repeatable and reliable process. A piece
of equipment does the job the same
way every time. It doesn’t get fatigued
or distracted, so the quality of work is
consistent. With automated processes,
you’ll have more confidence that hot spots
are being effectively cleaned.

While you’ll always need boots on the ground and human eyes reviewing the work of machines, automation greatly reduces the chance of costly human errors. Identify those hot spots and automate those sanitation processes first.

3. Eliminate Menial Tasks
Sanitation practices are ripe for
automation. Sanitation requires
specialized skills and typically requires
employees to work overnight shifts in
potentially dangerous environments. This
can make it especially difficult to hire —
and retain — the right people. With skilled
labor difficult to find, some companies are
competing with other business functions
— such as manufacturing — for labor.

Since good sanitation help is truly hard to find, you’ll want your existing crew to provide you with as much value as possible. Automated solutions help in this regard because they can be designed to complete many of the most monotonous, basic duties. Look for tasks that are