How food and beverage manufacturers can help ensure product and operations integrity through proper enclosure washdown procedures

Cleanliness may indeed equate with godliness, but food and beverage manufacturers need more than divine intervention to ensure that the nooks and crannies of their processing environments are clean and contaminant-free. Maintaining a sanitary environment for hardworking, mission-critical machinery is crucial, and removal of all waste materials and residues from processing systems and controls is essential. Thorough washdowns are a key component in protecting the integrity of manufacturers’ products, operations, and investmentsby ensuring cleanliness and preserving product purity and quality.

Incomplete washdowns have detrimental consequences. They can result in an assortment of headaches, such as contaminated products, production delays, lost productivity, reduced sales, product recalls, litigation, tarnished company reputations, and diminished brand equity. To avoid these unwanted scenarios, manufacturers should eliminate or minimize to the greatest extent possible areas in which contaminants can accumulate and make the areas in which contaminants cannot be eliminatedeasier to access and clean.

Many factors must be taken into account to ensure washdown cleanliness, high quality output, and a clean process changeover restart. Among these are the wash-down skill levels of the staff, the types of chemical and heat treatments utilized, electrical equipment protection, and industry standard compliance.

Equally important but often less considered, and the main topic of this article, are the enclosures used in and the enclosure attributes required for washdown applications. These attributes include enclosure construction and quality, design, hinging, sealing/gasketing, mounting, and latching.

ENCLOSURE ATTRIBUTES
Construction and Quality
An enclosure’s construction and quality should be evaluated to determine if the enclosure will withstand harsh chemical washdowns. Enclosures used in such applications need to be made of a non-absorbent material. Type 304 and 316L stainless steel are typically specified. An enclosure’s finish is also important because it facilitates complete washdowns and the removal of contaminants that can accumulate and grow on enclosure surfaces. A #4 finishis recommended.

It’s also beneficial to select enclosures that have smooth welds and are produced by a manufacturer that has automated manufacturing processes. This automation helps ensure quality, consistency, and repeatability resultingin minimal product variation from order to order.

If enclosure modifications are required, some manufacturers can ship the enclosures modified as specified, saving the customer time and additional expense. Again, it’s important that the manufacturer uses automated manufacturing processes to help ensurethe modifications are as ordered, in the correct locations, and consistent.

Design
Common enclosure-related problems that reduce wash-down effectiveness include washdown solution pooling, contaminant entrapment between walls and wall-mounted enclosures, and unreachable and recessed areas created by free-standing enclosure floor stands. These challenges, which are particularly problematic in and around tightly enclosed control systems and process electronics, can be efficientlyand effectively overcome when addressed early in the design process.