Candy in a heartbeat
24 September 2008
A Swedish confectionery manufacturer which produces candy has eliminated unscheduled production downtime, improved product consistency and minimised raw ingredient wastage. Here's how it managed to do so.
Watson-Marlow, which is based in Falmouth, is a peristaltic OEM pump specialist which recently provided Swedish confectionery manufacturer Alitea with 13 520VBM/REH OEM pumps. Alitea has since said the pumps have improved its company's operations on three crucial fronts: downtime, consistency and wastage.
Bubs godis (Bubs candy) produces 15,000 kg of starch-based, AZO-colorant-free gel candy each day at the company's highly automated production facility. Here, only four people manage the production process: from the storage of the raw ingredients (ie sugar) through the entire manufacturing process, up to the drying stage.
Watson-Marlow's 520VBM/REH OEM brushless-drive peristaltic pumps are said to be integral to the production process. Controlled by an advanced process control system, which communicates over a Profibus network, each of the 13 pumpheads are used to inject flavourings and colorants - all of which are required to operate at different flowrates and to a high level of accuracy.
Any unscheduled downtime at Bubs godis has the potential to cause the plant operators a major problem. During normal production, the pumping pressure is about 3bar. However, if the line is stopped, the glucose mixture soon becomes more viscous. Therefore, once production is resumed, the pressure is increased as high as 7bar.
Prior to the installation of the corrosion-resistant 520VBM/REH pumpheads this caused many issues: one of the most significant of which was the pipes needed to be washed with hot water to clear the ingredient build-up. This cleaning procedure caused 45 minutes of valuable production time. Up to 200kg of product would be wasted - a costly exercise for any company.
Since installation, the high-pressure capability of the 520VBM/REH pumpheads has brought significant benefits to Bubs' process engineers. Now, there is no pipe cleaning required if production stops thereby saving the company money, resources and costly plant downtime.
The OEM pumpheads also deliver benefits in terms of product quality and consistency throughout the production batch. The consistent flowrate means the amount of colorants and flavourings used has been reduced considerably - a critical aspect of any production process in the food industry.
The pump that's all heart
A peristaltic pump is a type of positive displacement pump used for pumping various fluids. The fluid is contained within a flexible tube fitted inside a circular pump casing (though linear peristaltic pumps have been made). A rotor with many 'rollers', 'shoes' or 'wipers' attached to the external circumference compresses the flexible tube. As the rotor turns, the part of tube under compression closes (or 'occludes') thus forcing the fluid to be pumped to move through the tube. Additionally, as the tube opens to its natural state after the passing of the cam ('restitution') fluid flow is induced to the pump. This process is called peristalsis and is used in many biological systems such as the gastrointestinal tract. Peristaltic pumps are used to pump clean or sterile fluids because the pump cannot contaminate the fluid or to pump aggressive fluids because the fluid cannot contaminate the pump. Wikipedia
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