Are you looking to optimize your dairy production?
Are you looking for optimizing your dairy production without jeopardizing product quality?
How to optimize your drying process to run 24/7.
Production facilities are always looking for ways to optimize their processes. As the milk market is presently oversupplied and milk prices are at their lowest seen for many years, upgrading production facilities to run continuously with better performance, is one way to increase the bottom line.
Standard milk powder plants normally run 20 hours before parts of the plant needs to be CIP'ed for controlling bacteria growth as well as fouling of the heating equipment. A CIP cycle of feed system from feed stop to feed run can take up to 4 hours, meaning more than 16% downtime on expensive production equipment. Further the shutdown of dryer to water can give irregularities in the powder specifications and thereby an uneven powder quality compared to a continuously powder production with a high degree of powder stability. Additional the energy loss of running the spray dryer on water without getting any powder is also considerably high.
Based on above, rebuilding of the production facilities to make the spray dryer run 24/7 has lots of advantages and the investment is quite often paid back within a very short time. Each case must be thorough investigated with the existing plant equipment evaluated and analyzed to understand the implications and necessary equipment/upgrade to be installed.
The evaporation capacity of the existing process will often not have sufficient capacity to increase the production with 16% as well as it will not be able to feed the dryer inline due to CIP requirements. There are different solutions to increase evaporation capacity.
The feed line system must be a double system where the feedline up to the atomizer is CIP'ed every 10 to 12 hours, often in connection with the finisher. If the existing atomizer is a centrifugal one, then there is a possibility to switch from one system to the other with a very short run on water (less than ½ hour.).
If the dryer already has a nozzle atomizer system, it will most often be possible to add duplex set of nozzles to the system. The air distribution system also needs to be assessed in terms of the additional nozzles which might affect the airflow.
Existing production area is normally used down to every square meter and it can therefore be a challenge to re-build and add additional equipment to the facility. However, smart solutions can be found in terms of elevation and platforms for new equipment. Every site needs careful examination to find the most optimal solution.
An update of the existing automation system is required to control the switch overs as automatic as possible to save time and man hours.
Based on above mentioned assessments, required capital investment for optimizing the production can be made and thereby the overall business case and return of investment time is visible.
Making a rebuild can in many cases be a fast and lower capital cost alternative to a complete new plant investment, however each case must be investigated individually.