Using Sanitary Spray Wash Cabinets to Combat Labor Shortage

Sanitary Spray for Food and Beverage

For food and beverage manufacturing facilities, the sanitation room is a crowded place. Most manufacturers have up to 10 sanitation professionals removing and scrubbing soiled components and installing cleaned components. It is no small effort to get the work done, and the labor shortage is putting a strain on these teams.

Often food and beverage manufacturing facilities reach out to Crane Engineering, for advice on sanitary wear parts and sanitary applications whether they are located in Minnesota, Wisconsin or Michigan.  Food and beverage manufacturers struggle to fill these staff positions and want to minimize downtime and meet sanitation standards. 

Crane Engineering was invited to offer input on a Sani-Matic cabinet washer and conduct a site visit.  We observed 8 people working to sanitize equipment. Two individuals worked to disassemble and reassemble machines while the remaining 6 stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the washroom. 

We observed the sanitation team handled components multiple times, from machine to pre-rinse, to wash, to rinse, to sanitize, then back to the machine. The entire process was inefficient and the workers’ exposure to caustic chemicals and hot temperatures posed a safety risk. The engineer was right, a cabinet washer would provide a number of benefits and improvements to this process.

Cabinet Washers

Cabinet washers can help food and beverage manufacturers solve some of the biggest issues with sanitation:

• Labor 
  • Not enough hands on deck to complete the work
  • Safety - exposure to chemicals
• Manual cleanings are not repeatable
• Not enough time to thoroughly clean components as necessary
• Water and chemical costs

Labor 

Employing a cabinet washer reduces the number of touches required to clean the equipment. The components are removed from the machine and placed on the rack. From there, the rack goes directly into the cabinet washer. Components are only touched twice versus 8-10 touches during manual cleaning. 

According to Sani-Matic’s Peter Barrie, with the help of a cabinet washer, food manufacturers could reduce the labor required to clean equipment components by up to 75%, allowing manufacturers to deploy those resources elsewhere. Automated cleaning also reduces damage to expensive process parts.

Worker Safety

Exposure to some cleaning chemicals causes irritation to the skin, rashes, or severe burns. Splashing chemicals can get into the eyes. Mists, vapors, or gasses from chemicals cause irritation to the nose, throat, lungs, or may burn the eyes. 

Cabinet washers remove constant exposure risks by containing the chemicals in an enclosed cabinet. When the cycle is complete, the equipment is safe to touch and re-install.

Repeatable, Validated Cleaning

Manual cleaning requires a lot of resources. It takes a lot of people and a lot of time to clean components manually day after day. Additionally, introducing the human element to the cleaning process means increased opportunities for errors and damaged components. 

With a cabinet washer, each component is washed in a manner that is repeatable and validated. In fact, some equipment from manufactures like Sani-Matic, can record and store data locally or in a cloud making reporting to regulatory bodies much easier.  This also meets FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act) making reporting a breeze. 

Here is what’s on Sani-Matic’s website:

“SaniTrend Cloud meets FSMA requirement for reporting and meets PMO’s requirements for electronic records [Appendix H, Section V (Criteria for the Evaluation of Electronic Data Collection, Storage, and Reporting)]. 

For Bio-Pharm end users, the SaniTrend™ Cloud Pro edition software package is available as an upgraded option, which adds HMI audit trail capabilities to SaniTrend Cloud.  The Pro edition is fully 21 CFR Part 11 Compliant.”

Time Constraints

Manual cleanings are highly time-consuming. When each component is handled one by one through a multi-step cleaning process, downtimes and line changes take longer. By allowing automated parts washers to do the heavy lifting with cleaning, plants can run more product and turn lines around quicker.

Water and Chemical Costs

Extensive water savings are realized with cleaning automation vs. manual cleaning. As many companies are focused on saving water and energy, spray wash cabinets can have a significant impact on sustainability goals. 

Using spray wash cabinets allows manufacturers to reuse water and chemical during some steps of the cleaning process. 

Things to Consider Before Installing a Cabinet Washer

The best thing about these stainless steel spray wash cabinets is that they pay for themselves. The savings on labor, water, and chemical add up quickly and make it an easily justifiable purchase. 

If you’re wondering if it makes sense for your facility, download our ROI calculator. 

Before making the jump to a cabinet washer, there are a couple of items to think through.

1. Hot water - Although newer cabinet washers use only a small amount of water during each cycle, consider any other processes that might also use hot water. Ensure there will be enough to go around.
2. Power - Since the components will no longer be cleaned with people-power, more electricity is required. Be prepared to make power adjustments if necessary. 

Again, even with possible upgrades needed for hot water and power, these systems can still deliver incredible ROI. 

Since the food manufacturer implemented the cabinet washer, they've been able to reduce the number of people washing components from 8 to two or three. A wash cycle is now 15 minutes in the cabinet instead of 40 minutes. The bottleneck in the process is no longer washing up. They've now requested a second washer for another location.

Sanitary Systems and Wear Parts for Food and Beverage Manufacturers

Want to learn more about a cabinet washer can make a difference in sanitation at your facility? Ask us about it!  Our in-house team of engineers can answer questions related to not only pumps but valves and skid systems. We provide a complete service and repair team who will fix pumps back to OEM standards. We are ready to assist you, contact us, today if you're in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Crane Engineering also builds and designs customized skid systems nationwide. 

Let us know how we can help you, request a quote today!