Sanitary Design

As defined by those who developed the principle, sanitary design is “the application of design techniques which allow the timely and effective cleaning of the entire manufacturing asset.” Originally published by the Equipment Design Task Force of the American Meat Institute (AMI) in the early 2000s, the principles have since been adapted to all segments of the food industry.

While best case is to design your plant and all its equipment according to sanitary design principles, very few processors can realistically start from scratch to design sanitation into every piece of equipment and part of the facility.

However, you can use the principles to assess your equipment and facility, then determine where low-cost or applied improvements can be made, and where long-term initiatives may need to be planned. “Building replacement and modernization into the budget is a managed approach,” said Ole Dosland, food protection consultant and trainer. Although quick fixes, such as duct tape and spot welds, may be tempting, a planned replacement modernization approach will yield better long-term results and help maintain regulatory compliance. “Retrofitting using the duck-tape/bailing-wire mentality within a primary pathogen control area is just not acceptable,” Dosland said.

This does not mean, however, that nothing can be done until major changes are economically feasible. Rather, you can apply the sanitation steps of the principles to your existing equipment to improve food safety, particularly those related to accessibility, surface cleanability, hollow area sealing, and validation.

Access and Cleanability.
One of the most critical aspects of cleaning is that of access to all areas, thus equipment with hidden or inaccessible areas, where food could be trapped or bacteria could grow, should take top priority for renovation or replacement.

“If the operator or sanitation crew can’t see it, it can’t be cleaned,” said Ben Trustem, applications engineering supervisor for Arrowhead Conveyor Corporation. “If you can’t see a surface or cavity, there is no way to guarantee that it is actually clean.” Thus, as a general concept, the more open the construction of the equipment and the easier the breakdown, the better it can be cleaned.

In addition, Trustem said, it is important to place equipment so as to allow for access around all sides. “If it is too tight to the wall or too high overhead, the sanitation crew can’t get into it to clean.”

“Cleaning is impossible if access is not provided, and cleaning is difficult if the access is limited,” Dosland said. Ease of access not only promotes better cleaning, he said, it is “a key for the cleaning science to work its wonders.”

In addition, when one considers the steps involved in cleaning and sanitation, the more difficult the equipment or facility is to clean the greater the impact the process will have on plant productivity. “All equipment must be cleaned, but some equipment and utensils must also be sanitized, “ said Fred Wu, president and CEO of DeltaTrak. “Special sanitation equipment may be required that must meet set standards established by state and local rules and regulations, and monitoring equipment must be on hand to ensure equipment compliance.”

The basic steps of a thorough sanitation process, Wu said, are pre-clean: remove, scrape and rinse to remove loose food or dirt; wash: use detergent solutions to remove stuck-on food or dirt; rinse: remove food, dirt and detergent; sanitize: kill attached surviving bacteria and viruses; then air dry.

Education and Validation.
It is also important to ensure your cleaning and maintenance personnel are educated in sanitary design principles, Dosland said. Defined as the application of scientific principles to practical ends such as the design, manufacture and operation of structures, equipment and processes, engineering seeks efficiencies. Defined as keeping structures, equipment and processes in proper condition for the intended operation, maintenance seeks ways to quickly get back into operation. “If we can educate the cleaning and maintenance personnel with good sanitary design principles, we can build in solutions and build out problems,” Dosland said.

In addition, he said, “maintenance should be planned with a sanitary design review. How can this piece of the environment be more accessible, be more cleanable, and be free of voids?”

“Cleaning procedures must be clear, detailed, validated and, when used, verified,” Dosland said. “Test the procedure and validate effectiveness with a rigorous process. Surfaces can be cleaned but to what standard? Verify that the cleaning procedure was executed properly, documented and shows evidence it was completed effectively.”

When the time does come to consider new equipment, keep in mind that, in general, the more sanitary design that is built into the piece, the higher the cost will be, Trustem said. But instead of looking at the direct cost, weigh it against the cost of cleaning and downtime associated with equipment not built with sanitary design principles. In addition to comparing lost production time and excessive labor for cleaning, he said, you should ask yourself, “If I don’t have sanitary design, how do I know the sanitary team can truly clean this thing?”

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The author is Managing Editor of QA magazine. She can be reached at llupo@giemedia.com.