Control
Maintain control of your process
Maintaining your processes will ultimately help you avoid any unwanted contamination and with Omron’s sensors you can further reduce your risk of contamination.
Fit for purpose sensing reduces potential contamination
Find out why choosing the right detection components can improve machine availability and reduce the risk of contamination
With the day to day pressures to remain competitive and keep your production process running, sometimes the simple things can be forgotten. Taking steps to avoid potential process contamination can help to drastically reduce the risk of lost production, substandard product reaching your end customer and the possible negative impact to your business reputation.
Dan Rossek, Regional Marketing Manager - Omron Electronics, offers his opinion on selecting fit for purpose detection components, taking into consideration the requirements of the environment and the application needs. All of which can often be overlooked leading to undesirable consequences.
Fit for purpose sensors is the smart choice.
Often detection components are located at the front end of the manufacturing process, close to the raw product and it is in these situations that selecting a fit for purpose detection component is most critical. Often, due to hygiene requirements, these areas will be subjected to regular cleaning processes, involving high pressure / temperature wash down and often involving aggressive chemical agents.
Detection components which are not designed to operate under these tough environmental conditions will often fail prematurely, which in-turn will result in machine down time to rectify the problem. A single instance of machine unavailability is costly and will have an adverse effect on manufacturing efficiency, but far too often this issue is repetitive as the product selection is not changed, resulting in reoccurring issues, further costs and increasing inefficiencies.
A more pertinent issue, especially in applications around primary food processing, where maintaining hygiene and eliminating contamination is a priority. The cleaning process can lead to many challenges for detection components, as the aggressive chemicals used to maintain hygiene, will easily corrode common materials used in standard detection devices. This situation can lead to contamination of the product, through the transfer of the corroded material on to the raw food product. The result of this can be considerable financial costs to manufacturers through product recalls and potential loss of brand reputation.
Omron recognise the need to develop products which are fit for purpose for applications in processing industries and offer a wide range of solutions which have been designed to work in these tough environments. Components manufactured in food grade stainless steel (SUS316L) and other materials which are inert to the effects of cleaning agents, has been a priority for several years.
As well as chemical resistance, Omron offer products tested to the highest water ingress protection of IP69k, to ensure operational longevity, even under high pressure and temperature cleaning regimes. A wide range of Omron products are also tested and certified for chemical resistance by independent agencies and manufacturers, including Ecolab and Diversey to ensure suitability and offer piece of mind to manufacturers.
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