Air Preparation Unit for Quality Assurance
To ensure your facility meets the standards for compressed air preparation, Festo has packaged multiple pre-configured and assembled air filtration units solving your demand for filtration and flow requirements to be delivered and installed at your facility, quickly.
The MSB6 compressed air preparation units were designed with your needs in mind and are fully compliant with guidelines for compressed air contact with food.
Getting ready for your food safety certification audit
Guidelines now recommend using a minimum filtration level of 0.01 µm with 99.999% efficiency at point of use for food contact applications for air preparation units. For applications up to 2500 l/min, the following complete solutions come fully assembled and are on the shelf for immediate delivery.
Air preparation combination unit MSB6
Safe, tamper-proof, simple and unambiguous. Pre-assembled and quickly delivered with a maximum flow rate of 2500l/min.
Choose your configuration, part number and maximum flow rate:
MS6 Left-to-right - PN #8031373, Maximum flow rate:2500 | Purchase now
MS6 Right-to-left - PN #13122746, Maximum flow rate:2500 | Purchase now
Upgrading pneumatic systems is one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways of meeting cGMP and FSMA guidelines.
The Consumer Brands Association (CBA), formerly the Grocery Manufacturers Association, said in a 2011 report, "A recall, particularly a 'Class I,' or health and safety recall, is usually a significant event for a food, beverage, or consumer products company. For companies that have faced a recall in the past five years, 77% of respondents estimated the financial impact to be up to $30 million dollars:, 23% reported even higher costs."
Important aspects of food safety
The two main aims of hygienic and efficient automation in food production are to protect the consumer and it protects the manufacturer's brand. These are the most important aspects of food safety in our view:
Machine design without edges or corners
In the production of grocery items, the standards and directives for design and materials must be implemented - the regulations are particularly strict for the sensitive area of food production. The hygienic design of machines and components is all important. When designing our automation components for your machines, we pay strict attention to factors that promote hygiene, such as smooth surfaces and wide-radius curves.
We have compiled the most important points about food safety from a machine design perspective into a white paper, together with a range of practical tips. It provides an overview of the relevant standards and design regulations and explains hazards, material selection, and cleaning.
In the production of grocery items, the standards and directives for design and materials must be implemented - the regulations are particularly strict for the sensitive area of food production. The hygienic design of machines and components is all important. When designing our automation components for your machines, we pay strict attention to factors that promote hygiene, such as smooth surfaces and wide-radius curves.
We have compiled the most important points about food safety from a machine design perspective into a white paper, together with a range of practical tips. It provides an overview of the relevant standards and design regulations and explains hazards, material selection, and cleaning.
Cleaning: thorough and fast
For manufacturers, keeping out foreign particles that could enter and expand to harmful quantities is a top priority, whether it's bacteria, chemicals, or corrosive particles. It is important to achieve optimum hygiene with the minimum amount of cleaning agents and time—the downtime of your systems should be kept as low as possible, and OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) should be as high as possible.
When cleaning a machine or system, four factors are critical:
- Temperature
- Time
- Mechanical action/force
- Chemical industry
Many sources of hazards can be eliminated in the design stage. At Festo, we understand that the automation components in food production must not react to cleaning agents or disinfectants. That is why our products are made to be resistant to corrosion and are mechanically and chemically stable. Our electrical components are reliably protected from the entrance of fluids and foreign particles. This reduces the number of unforeseeable failures and increases the availability of your systems.
We have compiled a white paper that summarizes the legal regulations regarding cleaning, and the degrees of electrical protection from IP65 to IP69K. It also contains practical information about the ease of cleaning and corrosion-resistance of system components, plus the correct selection of cylinder seals, pneumatic tubing and hoses, and other components.
For manufacturers, keeping out foreign particles that could enter and expand to harmful quantities is a top priority, whether it's bacteria, chemicals, or corrosive particles. It is important to achieve optimum hygiene with the minimum amount of cleaning agents and time – the downtime of your systems should be kept as low as possible, and OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) should be as high as possible.
When cleaning a machine or system, four factors are critical:
- Temperature
- Time
- Mechanical action/force
- Chemical industry
Many sources of hazards can be eliminated in the design stage. At Festo, we understand that the automation components in food production must not react to cleaning agents or disinfectants. That is why our products are made to be resistant to corrosion and are mechanically and chemically stable. Our electrical components are reliably protected from the entrance of fluids and foreign particles. This reduces the number of unforeseeable failures and increases the availability of your systems.
We have compiled a white paper that summarizes the legal regulations regarding cleaning, and the degrees of electrical protection from IP65 to IP69K. It also contains practical information about the ease of cleaning and corrosion-resistance of system components, plus the correct selection of cylinder seals, pneumatic tubing and hoses, and other components.
Food quality and compressed air quality
Great care has to be taken whenever compressed air comes into contact with food items, because compressed air is not clean by nature. A carefully designed system for air treatment is therefore necessary—also because you need different qualities of compressed air treatment at different points in the application. And every food item has special requirements for its production.
The parameters and quality classes of the following are important for correct and energy-efficient compressed air treatment in automation for food production:
- Solid particles
- Water content
- Total oil content
Our white paper on compressed air treatment describes the compressed air purity classes and also shows filter cascades for typical applications.
White Paper Compressed Air Quality (PDF)
Great care has to be taken whenever compressed air comes into contact with food items, because compressed air is not clean by nature. A carefully designed system for air treatment is therefore necessary – also because you need different qualities of compressed air treatment at different points in the application. And every food item has special requirements for its production.
The parameters and quality classes of the following are important for correct and energy-efficient compressed air treatment in automation for food production:
- Solid particles
- Water content
- Total oil content
Our white paper on compressed air treatment describes the compressed air purity classes and also shows filter cascades for typical applications.
Who should hear about this?
Food safety starts with the planning of the machine or system and continues all the way through to the consumer. Solutions from Festo ensure safety right from the start—for you and everyone involved, from food production to consumption. Share this page with this link.