180 kindergarten children fall ill after eating noodles with ham, 13 000 Japanese are admitted to hospital with food-poisoning symptoms owing to a lack of hygiene in a dairy - events that have made the headlines and have given rise to uncertainty in the past number of years. In spite of high hygiene standards in industrial countries, the danger of bacterial contamination in the food industry does not seem to have been fully eliminated, not to mention the damage to the image of the food manufacturer affected by the bacterial contamination.
In food factories, potential sources of contamination are lurking everywhere - bacteria, chemical contamination or corrosion particles. But just a few design details can eliminate many potential sources of danger. These include the surface finish - avoiding rough surfaces - and connections that must not have exposed threads. The component radii should be as great as possible, sharp angles; edges and gaps should be avoided.
Festo is out to set standards in this area with Clean Design and corrosion-resistant pneumatic components. They meet the hygiene standards for machinery applied in the manufacture of food and packaging. The pneumatic cylinders, valves and valve terminals are made of corrosion resistant materials, have smooth surfaces and meet international standards.
According to the principle applied in the past, the main characteristic of a standard Festo drive was its design functionality and its convenience in fixing accessories such as mounting components or proximity switches. In the food industry, however, another characteristic is of primary importance - ease of cleaning. Recently, therefore, Festo's product developers simply converted a functional standard drive into an easy-to-clean design, now able to claim a world-first as an actuator with integrated cylinder switches having a completely smooth, corrosion-resistant surface.
The development of valve terminals followed a similar path: Festo lays claim to developing the first valve terminals in the world for wet environments that completely dispense with a stainless steel control cabinet. Many multinational companies operating in the food and packaging sector are therefore working closely with Festo in order to avail of complete individual systems solutions. Tetra Pak, the international packaging manufacturer, has selected Festo as their 'preferred supplier'. This means that Festo has full responsibility for the development of all new pneumatic solutions. This applies to packaging machines for drink cartons in particular, because Festo has solutions to hand both for the food processing and the packaging sectors. In the food and packaging industry, Festo pneumatic systems can perform numerous functions such as driving flaps, filling, cutting, clamping, sorting and closing.
For more information contact Richard Teagle, managing director, Festo, 011 971 5500, [email protected], www.festo.com
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