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Material losses were eliminated within this couscous production line through good housekeeping measures.

Within feeding of the production lines from the silos, high amount of rejected material was quantified. As cause of this loss was identified lack of proper cleaning of silos including lack of maintenance / regular replacement of membrane at the bottom of silos.

Measurements of surface temperature within the steam network revealed lack of maintenance for the network, particularly in the pipes insulation. This resulted in overconsumption of fuel in the boiler. Fixing the insulation shall increase the boiler efficeincy, and reduce the energy consumption.

This practice descibes how simple measures can support reduce the material losses, and increase the productivity within a pasta handling and loading systems.

Steam used for cooking in a pasta company is in an open loop, being drained after the cooking stage without any recovery of heat or water. Directing that steam condensate to a heat exchanger to preheat the boiler feedwater shall utilize the latentheat. Moreover, should laboratory tests confirm the suitability of the condensate, it can be used directly as feedwater.

Due to lack of control over the temperature setting, viscosity of cream that is used to fill the biscuits was improper and led to blockages in the filling machine, and consequntly loss of material. Installing double wall pipe ahead of the cream filling machine helps maintain the cream temperature and viscosity within the desired setting, and eliminate these losses.

For a pasta production company, monitoring equipment were installed, and the production line was fully automated, yet missing the analysis and feedback loop. So the production lines had fixed program not considering the variations in process parameters. closing the loop through an analysis software lead to saving of 5% of the resource use.

Mapping raw material losses in a biscuit production facility reveald that significant losses occurred from dough spillage at the conveyor transferring it to feed the equipment. Installing barriers around that conveyor prevent material overflow and eliminates the losses.

Due to its long analysis time using conventional measurements, the humidity of produced pasta varied widely, leading to excessive water and energy consumption. Introducing Near InfraRed (NIR) analysis for moisture and protein content allowed to save on resources.

The quality and quantity of gluten in the semolina have a great impact on the processing characteristics and the final quality of the pasta and couscous. In a pasta production company, overseeing this parameter resulted in increased rate of recycled products, which are avoidable through introduction of glucomatic system.