Equipped with an ejector with a high vacuum flow, they were able to adjust the speed to maintain the granules as planned. Facing continuous quality problems during the transport of granules of instant milk within their process line, Polmlek Raciaz, a member of the Polmlek Group – Poland’s largest 100% Polish-owned dairy company, needed to modernize their system. The blower, screw, and rotary valved used for this process did not render the expected result and let to regular product damage and waste.
“Since we already have two Piab vacuum conveyors in use at other stations and considering our satisfaction with the service experienced so far by Piab’s Polish entity, we decided to replace the old system by Piab’s premium product, the piFLOWp vacuum conveyor.” Explains Bogdan Graczyk, Technical Manager at Polmlek Raciaz.
Tadeusz Fobke, responsible Product Sales Manager at Piab Poland adds “to confirm that the vacuum conveying process would indeed improve the process and avoid damages of the granules, we ran the test at our inhouse demo unit and established the necessary parameters to ensure a smooth process at Polmlek.”
In addition to solving the initial problem with product quality, the deployment of Piab’s piFLOW®p vacuum conveyor also allowed to reduce the manpower required as the process needed less supervision. Furthermore, due to reduced machine downtimes and maintenance requirements, the production output could also be increased.
Piab’s piFLOW®p conveyors for powders and bulk solids are perfectly matched to the high standards of operational safety and hygiene in the food and pharmaceutical industries. They are made of electropolished stainless steel and materials that comply with the US FDA and EU 1935/2004 regulations. As a conveying line, a suction hose made of PU is used. An internal steel spiral helps to minimize the electrostatic charge of the product or diverts it to equipotential bonding.
The filter in the upper part of the conveyor is cleaned with a filter shock after each conveying cycle. The device control is located in a separate control cabinet. The piFLOW®p conveyors are ATEX Dust and Gas certified. Typical applications are powder and granules transfer, form-fill-seal machines, big bag loading and unloading, drum/bag filling and emptying, mill/sieve/mixer/blender filling, tablet/fragile products transfer, applications in an explosive atmosphere, hygienic applications or places where space is at a premium.