Computer-based sterilizer simulation training in food processing efficiency.

Computer-based sterilizer simulation training in food processing efficiency

Rediffusion Simulation Limited provides simulation systems for the military, aerospace and marine industries. The company's interactive Training Systems also provide training and simulation packages for the food industry. These have found application in environments familiar to both the canmaking and canfilling sectors of the industry A major problem faced by the canning and canmaking sectors of the industry is the necessity to use processes which may only be cost-effective when operated for long periods without arrest. In many large-scale canneries, production occupies 24 hours a day for long periods either because the economies of scale are necessary in a very competitive market-place accustomed to a very low unit cost--or because seasonal production of fruit, vegetables and fish demands immediate processing of large volumes in the shortest possible time to ensure minimal losses owing to spoilage.

Even in the pet food industry, where supplies can be rationalized on a long-term basis, the high turnover and low unit cost will ensure total disappearance of the slim profit margins involved if down-time of any part of a production line exceeds that required for planned hygiene operations and routine maintenance or "tuning".

Time used for on-site training periods using production machinery in situ is only cost-effective if it provides the sufficient amount of training and experience for operators to enable them to avoid error and accident. And only the most profitable of operations can afford to reserve examples of currently used machinery exclusively for training purposes. Even if ideal training situations exist, the requirement to update machinery to keep pace with, for example, market-volume demands and the developments undertaken by competing companies and alternative processes, means that line management and operators need to update themselves to make optimum use of new equipment or new process developments. Thus the full efficiency of a production process may never be reached in a cannery or a canmaking plant.

An examplary problem

With the wide experience gained in the application of simulation techniques in a wide variety of specialized environments, Rediffusion Simulation's Interactive Training Systems can show an appreciation of this situation.

One of the company's first simulation systems for the food industry was for a major food canner using a Stork Hydrostatic Sterilizer in a 24-hour day pet food operation. A high degree of operator and diagnostic technician training was required to appreciate the complex and highly dynamic sterilization process. As usual, there was no opportunity for operators to train using the plant in operation because any resultant down time would have lost production and possibly products in-process as well. Operators were unprepared for new situations and the technical aspects of process degradation could go without notice in the absence of appreciation of a hands-on diagnostic approach.