For over 80 years Alete GmbH (www.alete.de) has been known as a manufacturer of children’s nutrition. The products are made maintaining the highest standards in the dimensions of quality, sustainability, ethics and social responsibility. In addition to the stringent requirements of the raw materials used a rigorously controlled and hygienic production process is important.
As part of the continuous improvement of the production process, Alete GmbH sets on the URESH-double-pigging- system (www.uresh.ch). The customer-specific designed system ensures a secure and efficient transport of the baby food from the processing tank to two filling systems which are operated alternately. The first pig is positioned in front of the pipeline outlet of the used filling system and is held in place without mechanical elements. It prevents unintentional filling of the unused pipeline section and avoids unnecessary material loss and possible quality problems. At the end of production, the valuable “rest product” is discharged without any loss using the second pig. Subsequently, while the entire system remains enclosed, it is fully automatic, fast and reliable cleaned and disinfected.
The decision to employ a URESH-pigging system was, according to Bartholomäus Hoisl (Project Manager Alete), based on the following criteria, which were fully met by URESH:
“Due to our high quality and hygienically sensitive products, the employed pigging system must not use any
internal elements such as pig stopper or holding rods in the stations or pipelines. Moreover, the use of hygienically problematic ball valves is not desired. In addition to high-quality pigging system components the supplier must offer additional support for system planning, design, programming as well as system installation, commissioning, qualification and operator training. Equally important is a good after-sales support for future system and process optimization in order to adapt the system to any future requirements.”
The commissioned system integrator PAT GmbH & Co. KG (www.pat-online.com) installed the system within the planned annual maintenance standstill. Following the successful commissioning and qualification the pigging system was handed over to production on schedule.
The URESH single or double-pigging systems allow a gentle and loss free discharge of the products from the pipelines. The product can be used further without any loss of quality. Simultaneously, the pipes are pre-cleaned and can be cleansed with minimal use of detergent and water. The availability and efficiency of the system is significantly increased. The economy of the production process is optimized and the investment costs are amortized in the shortest possible time. The design of the pigging system is patented and EHEDG certified (sending station, receiving station and pig). It has been specifically designed to meet the hygiene and quality requirements of the food processing and related process industries.
Pigging systems are versatile employed. For optimum operation, the system must be adapted to the needs of customers, products and processes. This reduces the investment, operating and maintenance costs. URESH-pigging systems take this into account with a modular design. Based on basic stations, manual systems are easily realized. By expanding the base stations, these can be upgraded to fully automatic, qualified, validated and into process controls integrated systems. Thus, the production process adapts future-proofed to constant changing requirements.