DAIRY PLANT DESIGN AND LAYOUT

Module 4. Design aspects of dairy plant

Lesson 25
COMMON PROBLEMS

25.1 Introduction

The design of a dairy building is most important and must be done very carefully. The design depends upon the handling capacity, that is the quantity of milk to be processed and the quantity of milk products to be prepared. There are some of the typical problems related to plant designs are:

(i) Lack of harmony between plant location and economic environmental conditions

(ii) Process equipment selection, influenced by local personal interest

(iii) Modern processing lines with auxiliary equipment requires planning, designing and layouting at initial stage.

(iv) Lack of heat and water recycling system, material handling and poor management.

(v) Modern process and new building quickly deteriorates due to improper operation and lack of maintenance.

25.2 Remedies to the Problems

In order to avoid above problems a systematic approach to planning, designing and layouting of dairy plant should be employed. To change equipment and process is almost always possible, but change in concept of building layout, infrastructure and environmental conditions of the dairy plant is hardly possible. Therefore an optimum plant design concept based on Integrated Project Engineering Method (IPEM) should be used.

Integrated design of dairy plant building and services for a new factory has made possible higher processing efficiency and better product quality with minimum energy consumption, capital investment and operating cost. Traditional designs were changed and engineering services and equipments are provided with turn-down capacity in order to meet these optimized objectives and to have reduction in energy consumption, reduction in capital expenditure, reduction in equipment cost. The total layout coordinates all functions and labour utilization and may be brought of as two inter related parts i.e. equipment layout and sectional layouts, to have smooth functioning with efficient heat utilization and minimizing the energy in conveying the products.

25.3 Concept of Integrated Project Engineering Methods (IPEM)

A systematic approach to the planning of dairy plant is needed to guarantee their economic operations, which exists in future are successfully predicted. An Integrated Project Engineering Methods (IPEM) has been developed for this purpose, which is based on

(i) Optimization of processing in sequence

(ii) Maintaining the food safety and hygienic requirement

(iii) Optimization of plant design using complex optimization or technical process together with auxiliary plant, and

(iv) Introducing automation, process control, and on-line measurements