Performance Audit and CIP eliminate summertime production loss

To avoid production loss, the plant needed all of their 39 Alfa Laval seawater coolers up and running at all times. If even one unit was fouled or out of operation, production suffered. The coolers' performance was not monitored, which made it hard to schedule cleaning. Instead, the units were routinely opened and cleaned each year on a predetermined date, which meant they were cleaned too often or not often enough. It cost time and money and caused unnecessary wear and tear on gaskets and plates.

Performance Audit and Cleaning Services eliminated unscheduled downtime 

Today, the Alfa Laval Performance Audit and Cleaning-in-Place ensures maximum efficiency without unscheduled downtime. Since the heat exchangers are opened less frequently and the manual cleaning was replaced with Cleaning-in-Place, the company’s maintenance budget dropped drastically. Cleaning-in-Place requires 24 man-hours as compared to the 150 man-hours for manual cleaning.

Alfa Laval Services led to several benefits:

• Savings of hundreds of thousands of Euros
• Production losses avoided due to ensured optimal heat-exchanger performance during summertime
• Reduced annual maintenance budget by minimizing the cleanings and reducing cleaning time 
• Decreased downtime by reducing cleaning time for each plate heat exchanger from seven days to one day 
• Reduced wear and tear due to less frequent opening; extends equipment lifetime and decreases spare parts costs

Performance Agreement brought more uptime, instantly 

Signing the first one-year Performance Agreement including Performance Audit, performing CIP and manual cleaning on rare occasions, immediately resulted in more uptime. Pleased with the results, the company has renewed the Performance Agreement with Alfa Laval several times.