Project Background
Our customer is a premier supplier of ready-to-drink and milk products to the Western region of the United States. As with most beverage and dairy product manufacturers, a key component to the plant’s production capabilities is the ingredient storage capacity with a focus to unload waiting deliveries as quickly as possible to minimize potential demurrage charges.
Over time, as our customer has developed and released new products to market, the production demands have grown while the existing plant infrastructure did not. With the existing raw storage now at maximum capacity our customer’s ability to develop new products and keep up with increased product demands would soon be hampered and constrained by bottle necks in receiving, tank sanitation, and tank turn-overs. The simplest method of increasing storage capacity was to install a new receiving silo carefully selected for size, materials, function, and capable of buffering future expansion needs.
Project Hurdles
Our customer’s available open space in the receiving area are limiting the placement options for installing a new silo safely and with adequate size to meet future production demands. The silo was primarily to be used for beverage ingredient storage but also had to comply with 3-A and PMO standards. This would allow the use of the tank for raw milk storage should factory output plans change.
The new silo would also need to be tied into the existing process transfer valve manifolds and CIP system without disrupting the ongoing production. The existing controls network and architecture would also need to be expanded to incorporate the new equipment and instrumentation as well as production and cleaning circuits without modifying the existing production and cleaning circuits for the existing raw milk silos. These control updates had to be done off site as to not interrupt production operations during the design and program expansion phases.
Solution
Placer Process Systems performed a turn-key silo installation including calculations to confirm silo size optimizing the project budget. Then a specification for the silo was developed with the customer allowing for the collection of multiple bids with consideration towards service and freight costs. Afterwards, silo installation services, process piping, CIP supply and return piping, electrical and control panel hardware upgrades proceeded. With Placer Process being responsible for the complete system upgrade design and installation, our customer had a single point of contact to handle all aspects of the project. This also ensured plant operations were not disturbed because installation coordination for all trades were handled simultaneously.
The controls network and architecture updates were performed off site to prevent interruptions to current production operations. Upon completion of the mechanical installation, programming updates, and control panel hardware upgrades, Placer Process performed start-up services to commission the new raw milk silo.
Results
By installing and integrating a new receiving silo, our customer’s raw storage capacity nearly doubled. The plant’s production capacity is no longer a function of the raw storage capacity as it had been for years past. The turnkey installation services provided by Placer Process Systems resulted in a complete mechanical, electrical and controls integration installation with zero plant downtime.
