Improving machine design through hygienic component surfaces

Deviation from hygienic design standards corresponds to decreased motor sanitizability leading to increased contamination risk and the need for additional costly and time-consuming interventions.

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Food and beverage companies and their machine suppliers constantly work to keep the food supply safe with water and chemical sanitation processes. Hygienic machine design is critical even down to the sub-component level to allow these processes to be effective in removing product residues and pathogens and destroying bacterial intruders.

Both the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) and the European Hygienic Engineering Design Group (EHEDG) have published lists of Hygienic Machine guidelines. One of the challenges in meeting these guidelines is the design of machine components such as motors, gearboxes, and sensors.

Can the hygienic design of these components affect the ability to sanitize the entire machine? Kollmorgen, Radford, Va., sought scientific proof to answer this question. The company collaborated with the Virginia Tech Department of Food Science and Technology (VT FST) to verify the premises behind hygienic machine design as applied to servo motors.

VT FST performed a series of tests to determine the sanitizability of three commonly used servo motor designs. The three motors tested were an industry standard IP67 wash down servo motor designated as Motor W, a stainless steel motor used in the food and beverage industry designated Motor C, and a stainless steel servo motor designed to comply with the NAMI hygienic design checklist and EHEDG design parameters designated Motor H.

Each motor was treated with ATCC 25922 strain of E. coli. The study focused on determining sanitizability at areas of concern on the motors’ surfaces: labels and surface finish, seals and fasteners, and cabling. The team focused on these areas to see how design features affected the ability of the servo motor to be sanitized of E. coli. These areas were marked and isolated, then put in contact with 10 µl of E. coli for one hour. During this time, the motors were run at an amperage that kept their surface temperatures between 33° C and 38° C, non-lethal temperatures for E. coli.

Sites were inoculated with E. coli and sampled prior to the cleaning and sanitation procedure to determine a baseline. A typical industry cleaning and sanitation procedure supplied by a leading food production company was used to clean and sanitize each of the motors. The marked sites were sampled again post-wash to determine if the area was successfully sanitized. Three repetitions of this process were performed to provide an appropriate data sample size.

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