Considerations for effective cleaning-in-place (CIP) systems

The production of safe food and drink products is of paramount importance to producers, and maintaining hygienic — in some cases, sterile — production environments and equipment is a key requirement for modern food processing machinery. Apart from the simplest systems, most equipment today, particularly that which contains pipework, enclosed spaces and small apertures, is cleaned in situ without the need for dismantling or opening, and with minimal operator intervention — a technique which is known as cleaning-in-place (CIP).

Cleaning (or clean) in place has been around since the 1950s and can be defined as a method of automated cleaning of the interior surfaces of equipment, without major disassembly. One of the most widely quoted definitions of the term is taken from the 1990 edition of the Society of Dairy Technology (SDT) Manual "Cleaning In Place," which defines CIP as “The cleaning of complete items of plant or pipeline circuits without dismantling or opening of the equipment and with little or no manual involvement on the part of the operator. The process involves the jetting or spraying of surfaces or circulation of cleaning solutions through the plant under conditions of increased turbulence and flow velocity.”