Clean machines
4 Feb 2021
The crucial role of pumping systems in influencing the world’s energy usage for better or worse is well documented and understood, within the sector itself at least.
Ensure maximum efficiency for every pump and the overall savings made on the global energy bill would be colossal.
The contribution does not begin and end there, however. New products are producing significant improvements and gains in process sectors that emphasise the need for sterile and hygienic atmospheres. Among these sectors is food and drink, where the regulatory, environmental and reputational factors that loom large are impacted heavily by cleanliness requirements.
Pressure to improve standards continually battles for priority with demand for food to be produced more competitively in greater quantity and diversity. But these aims are simultaneously complementary and competing.
Safer environments enhance brand reputation and improve product marketability and consumer trust; they lessen the instances of unnecessary stoppages and downtime; and reduce the diversion of budget spending on damage limitation exercises.
Pumps can variously reduce potential for contamination, ensure faster product line switches and, thanks to digitalisation and automation, can improve preventative maintenance and reduce the margin of human error.
Additionally, the development of sophisticated traceability and governance has extended the parameters of contamination protection, so that detailed records of a product’s chemical composition can now become available along lengthy supply chains.
While the gains may never match the potential energy savings bonuses, they produce another instance of the central role that pumping systems and products play in building cleaner and more competitive industries.
