How to Improve Your Manufacturing Center: Tips and Tricks
If you had to rate the style format of your manufacturing center, what quality would you give it on a scale of 1 to 10? In talking with manufacturers that have spent years thinking about layout improvement, we found ways the ideal layout can significantly enhance these three aspects.
General Tidiness is Improved
Ensuring your manufacturing center is free and clean of contamination will save you time and money and ensure product quality. Build in simple cleaning design aspects in advance of time if you’re in the preparation phases of your brewery-style layout. Here are some things to consider including in your layout style for improved tidiness:
Talk about the most effective positioning of equipment in each area with your equipment makers and the best methods of cleaning pipes and inside tanks.
Several facilities install epoxy floors which are non-porous and have an antimicrobial layer on the surface, so cleaning them requires fewer chemicals and scrubbing.
Setting up a clean-in-place system greatly reduces and, in many cases, eliminates the possibility of cross-contamination between steps.
Some prefer to go with consulting companies that specialize in distilling and manufacturing centers to create the cleanest design possible.
There is a Boost in Power Efficiency
A decade ago, energy conservation considerations were primarily cost-saving measures for manufacturers. Today, manufacturers are twice as motivated to conserve because energy use is as much built around environmental stewardship as it is the bottom line. Layout again can play a vital role in saving energy costs, and here are some of the most common examples:
Reducing the distances between steps means a reduction in the amount of required pumping. Less pumping, in turn, requires less energy and also helps to avoid the possibility of unexpected flavors in beer quality.
Build in heat recovery systems for the reuse of heat within your layout. Heat can be recovered from pasteurization, fermentation, and many other steps within the process.
Have replacement parts available in the event that your brewing equipment needs repair. This will help speed up getting the brewing process moving again and reduce downtime.
You Save Money
The good news is that there is also an endless number of solutions for general cost savings with operations taken in making your manufacturing center. Essentially, the real benefit of carefully-planned brewery layout and process management is the cumulative effect it has on cost reduction over time. Remember some of these more well-known methods when creating your own list for a repayment period on your investment:
If you put the conditioning tanks as close to the bar area as possible, money spent on beer line cooling and insulation is less.
Preemptively save costs of having to upgrade equipment layout by anticipating additional space beforehand. It’s expensive to create space for larger equipment once growth occurs.
Water costs can be reduced by treating and storing lauter tun water drainage in the brewhouse area to be used for later brewing.
Recoup the costs of wasted beer by installing a system in the filling area to collect any beer spillage.
Ultimately, learning from a design layout means knowing what your goals are ahead of time and seeking as many facilities as possible that have created what you’re looking to build. Communicating with like-minded manufacturers who have achieved the manufacturing layout you desire will help you learn from any mistakes they may have already experienced.
