INDUSTRY: Food & Beverage | SERVICES: Controls & Automation | Mechanical Engineering | Construction Management | Safety Consulting – Dust Collection
ABOUT THE CLIENT
An innovator in pet nutrition that positions itself as a global leader in research on critical food safety challenges frequently partners with EAD to bring their corporate safety and engineering initiatives to fruition. With an annual revenue in the billions of dollars and control of a large share of the US pet food market, our client stays ahead of the competition by ensuring their manufacturing facilities safely meet the needs of both their clients and their clients’ pets.
PROBLEM TO SOLVE
Our client struggled with the accumulation of dust in one of their manufacturing facilities. Airborne dust particles can negatively impact product quality and harm the health of facility occupants. In order to keep their facility dust free, the pet food manufacturer had to regularly allocate valuable staff resources to housekeeping efforts, thereby slowing down production. When the situation reached a point that plant operators could not control the volume of dust at their product mixing stations, our client quickly brought in EAD to investigate the cause.
APPROACH & SOLUTION
After a thorough assessment, we determined that excess dust accumulated in the facility when dry, fine powder ingredients were added to the manufacturing process. EAD’s engineering and safety experts worked with our client to find a turn-key solution to tackle the dust collection hazard and increase production. Our in-house experts in contracting, controls and automation, construction management, and mechanical engineering collaborated to both manage the project and engineer a hygienic solution to prevent the accumulation of dust.
Drawing from our expertise in hygienic design engineering, EAD developed a solution to prevent the collection of dust and reduced product cross-contamination. We engineered a system of ventilation ducts that collected and safely removed the fine dust. We also programmed an automated duct work water flush to prevent the risk of cross-contamination between our client’s product batches. The installation of the novel dust collection system
was overseen by the EAD construction management team.
RESULT & BENEFIT
The dust collection system successfully reduced the amount of dust accumulation in our client’s facility. Reducing the hazard minimized the downtime needed for maintenance and helped to maximize the longevity of facility equipment. With no safety hazards from dust particles, our client was also able to reassign personnel from cleaning back to production, improving their bottom line.