English
Exelerate™ TUFSOIL provides time and labor savings by improving cleaning outcomes and reducing mechanical action required to remove pizza processing soils
VALUE DELIVERED
$163,840
Potential Annual Labor Savings
$561,600
Potential Annual Productivity Gains
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Background
A prominent food processor in North America produces more than 20 million frozen pizzas and baked goods annually. The local plant management was constantly seeking for ways to minimize downtime and boost production rates due to an increase in demand. Labor shortages in the cleaning and sanitation crew also led the plant to seek ways to more efficiently allocate their time and activities.
It was identified that a lot of time was being spent scrubbing and scraping the cheese melters and belt lines due to heavy soil load, sometimes preventing on-time production startup. By cleaning the equipment faster, the plant could use the additional time to start production earlier.
The current cleaning procedures were the following:
- Cheese Melter, every day
- 1 employee
- 2 hours manual scraping
- Belt Lines, every 2 weeks
- 4 employees
- 4 hours manual scraping
After consulting with the Ecolab Account Manager, the plant management decided to use Exelerate™ TUFSOIL, a ready-to-use heavy duty gel cleaner and degreaser, to tackle their hard-to-remove protein and carbohydrate soils. The success criteria were the following:
- Reduce the time spent scraping and cleaning the cheese melters and belt lines to more efficiently allocate employees’ time.
- Minimize safety risks during application of chemistry.
After a low-pressure water rinse, most of the soils were removed; the cheese melter did not require any manual scraping and the belts needed negligible scraping when compared to the previous procedure to achieve equivalent soil removal.
Results
Implementing Exelerate™ TUFSOIL saved the plant 18 man-hours by eliminating the scraping of one cheese melter and one belt line. Annually, throughout the plant, the savings totaled 3,120 man-hours. The time saved was allocated towards other cleaning activities and it prevented the plant from delaying the production start.
The sanitation lead recognized that, compared to the previous alkaline foam cleaner, Exelerate™ TUFSOIL had a reduced odor during its application and thus enhanced workers’ safety.
The users also noted that Exelerate™ TUFSOIL’s fluorescent green dye helped them make sure that the product was fully rinsed and would aid to train future users on the correct application.
The ready-to-use formula also made it easy for them to apply Exelerate™ TUFSOIL and reduce the potential for any operational errors due to incorrect dilution.
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Conclusion
By implementing Exelerate™ TUFSOIL as part of the plant’s cleaning program, the plant was able to reduce the time spent scraping and cleaning the cheese melters and belt lines to more efficiently allocate employees’ time and reduce safety risks during application of chemistry.
CONVERSION SAVINGS
9 Hours
saved per cleanup
98%
reduction in manual scraping
3,120 Man-hours
saved annually
$40,712
in annual savings
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