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Does your management team actually understand what’s involved in process safety management (PSM)? For many organizations, the answer is “no.” Management often doesn’t realize how much goes into completing each of the 14 PSM elements, telling their teams to simply “get it done.” However, there are ways to increase management’s PSM involvement. Continue Reading “How to Get Management More Involved in Your PSM Program”
A process hazard analysis (PHA) is just one of the 14 essential process safety management (PSM) elements, but it’s also one of the most important. A PHA is extremely detailed, designed to examine and address potential hazards associated with handling highly hazardous chemicals. Do you have all of your bases covered? Continue Reading “7 Items Your Process Hazard Analysis Must Address”
Don’t let your food processing plant’s process safety management (PSM) audit take you by surprise. Preparation is paramount, and self-auditing is key. Here are some tips for performing a self audit in your facility.
Continue Reading “Are You Self-Auditing for PSM Compliance? You Should Be”
Food and beverage processors are increasingly turning towards robotics for the technology’s slew of benefits including reduced costs, upped throughput and increased food and worker safety. Earlier this month, I contributed to the Food Engineering article, “The rise of robotic automation,” discussing the functionality for robots in the food processing industry. While robotics does boast various benefits to food manufacturing, it’s important to follow some best practices during your own implementation. Continue Reading “5 Best Practices for Using Robotics in Your Food Processing Plant”
When deciding on refrigerant piping for your food processing facility, you’re faced with two major options: carbon steel or stainless. While carbon steel, or black pipe, is the industry standard, stainless is a far better investment for your food manufacturing plant due to lifetime costs, maintenance and durability. Continue Reading “Why Stainless Refrigerant Piping is a Better Investment Than Carbon Steel”
Each new year carries a fresh set of trends, opportunities and challenges. To celebrate the start of 2015, I’ve forecasted five trends I expect to drive food manufacturing in the months ahead.
Continue Reading “5 Food Processing Industry Trends for 2015”
Before selecting a site for your food processing plant, are you sure you’re accounting for all of the costs involved? In our last post, we outlined some key considerations for building a better greenfield budget. Here, I dive in deeper with the often forgotten soft costs, or fees that fall outside the realm of direct construction costs. These include pre-construction permits, impact fees and utility connection fees. To help you with your site due diligence, be sure to account for these soft costs commonly associated with new facility sites.
Continue Reading “Food Processing Plant Site Due Diligence: Soft Costs to Expect”
‘Tis the season to … piece together your capital budget for the new year. When estimating your numbers for food processing projects on the horizon, don’t just base your predictions on what you did the last time around. You shouldn’t be estimating costs based solely on square footage, either. However, there are ways to build a higher confidence level behind your budget and ensure its accuracy—it all lies within the data. Continue Reading “How to Build a Better Capital Budget for Your Food Processing Plant”
Preventive maintenance should be one of your key strategies to keeping your plant’s assets healthy. While equipment upkeep and parts replacements are necessary, there are ways you can reduce your preventive maintenance costs without decreasing your food processing facility’s operational efficiencies.
Continue Reading “5 Ways to Reduce Preventive Maintenance Costs for Your Food Processing Plant”
After receiving over 20,000 comments, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently amended several previously proposed rules for the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), including the Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls (HARPC) for Human Food rule. To address food safety from the beginning, the proposed HARPC rule requires preventative measures be taken at food processing facilities. While the FDA is currently accepting comments on the update, the December 15 deadline is rapidly approaching.
Continue Reading “Comment Deadline Approaching for Proposed HARPC FSMA Amendment”
