Increase Efficiency, Lower Costs, and Improve Environmental Sustainability with Pigging Technology
The personal care and cosmetics industry face a complex set of challenges in 2022.
Like most industries, personal care and cosmetics manufacturers are still dealing with the ongoing negative implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Manufacturers must also contend with highly volatile prices, labour shortages, supply chain issues, higher costs to produce and ship goods, slower global growth and other challenges while meeting rapidly changing customer needs.
As a result, many manufacturers are looking for innovative and proven technologies and processes to boost efficiency, increase capacity, lower costs, and improve sustainability.
One of the technologies increasingly being implemented by personal care and cosmetics manufacturers is liquid product recovery (“pigging”).
Pigging delivers major cost savings and tangible benefits. It provides a high return on investment (ROI) and rapid payback (usually just a few months). That’s why pigging is increasingly becoming a ‘must-have’ investment for personal care and cosmetics companies.
Pigging Systems for Personal Care and Cosmetics Manufacturing
Pigging systems are used with a wide range of personal care and cosmetics products, from creams, ointments, and body lotions, to soaps, gels, shampoos, conditioners, and deodorants.
The pigging process uses a specialist projectile (the ‘pig’), which fits compactly to the pipeline and recovers the residual liquid from the pipe.
Because the HPS magnetised pig has full contact with the pipeline wall, it ensures very little liquid can get passed it. This enables the HPS pig to achieve maximum recovery rates (typically up to 99.5% of product from full pipelines).
The reclaimed product (which would otherwise be lost to waste) is instead pushed to its destination, which is usually the tank, filler, storage, bottling or packaging. The product could also be sent to continue processing along with the rest of the batch.
Importantly, pigging saves thousands in wasted product, so the benefits and cost savings from a pigging solution are remarkable.
In addition to personal care and cosmetics, pigging systems are widely used by an extensive range of sectors, industries, and applications. This includes food, beverages, confectionery, pet food, household goods, paints, coatings, lubricants, chemicals, and many other liquids.
Saving Product and Money with a Pigging System
By recovering residual liquid product left behind in pipelines, pigging systems for personal care and cosmetics products are an effective way to increase yields and reduce waste.
The reclaimed residual product is perfectly usable so can be sold or continue to be processed along with the rest of the batch.
Importantly, without a pigging process, this product would be typically flushed to waste, as part of the cleaning and changeover process.
With personal care and cosmetics manufacturers dealing with countless challenges such as rising costs and inflation, they certainly want to avoid throwing valuable, high-priced inputs down the drain.
Especially when the cost of removal or treatment of waste is already a major expense to many companies. And not to mention that some of the key ingredients used in personal care and cosmetics production are extremely rare and expensive to buy.
That’s where pigging can help. In addition to the major product savings, waste disposal and treatment costs also decline (due to less product being sent to waste).
In turn, the reduction in product waste equates to improved efficiency, increased productivity, lower energy usage, faster changeover times, improved sustainability, and increased profitability. So, the cost savings from pigging are significant.
Speeding Up Changeovers in Personal Care and Cosmetics Production
Frequent changeovers are essential in personal care and cosmetics production. They involve a manufacturing plant switching from producing one product to another during a planned downtime.
A major pain point facing personal care and cosmetics companies when dealing with changeovers is the that they can result in massive amounts of lost production time and downtime.
After all, every minute that a process is stopped to carry out a changeover process, is one less minute of productive time.
Changeovers are occurring at greater frequency, due to many personal care and cosmetics plants now running an extensive range of products per line per day. The problem being is that the more changeovers there are, the more downtime there is which equates to decreased productivity, efficiency, and revenue.
In addition, changeovers can also be extremely labour and resource-intensive, using extensive amounts of water, cleaning chemicals, and energy.
A key benefit of pigging systems is that they speed up changeover times and make the process more efficient.
Due to the high recovery rates of the HPS pig, there’s minimal product in the pipe after the pigging process. This means there’s less requirement for extensive, time-consuming flushing and clean-in-place (CIP).
It’s important to note, that although pigging will not always eliminate the need for CIP completely, however, it will significantly shorten the process. In some cases, it can eliminate the preliminary rinse, and will reduce the rest of the CIP process.
Regardless, pigging systems reduce changeover times significantly. And they also reduce cleaning and labour costs.
Ramping up Production Capacities to Keep Pace with Demand
With the demand for personal care and cosmetics products increasing, it’s more important than ever that manufacturers become more agile and respond quickly to ever-changing customer demands.
As trend-driven stock keeping unit (SKU) proliferation continues to accelerate in the personal care and cosmetics market, production flexibility is vital to cope with the frequent changeovers.
With a pigging process, instead of using dedicated production lines for each product (which is costly and can hinder efficiency), personal care and cosmetics manufacturers can instead use shared lines for transferring different product formulations.
The HPS pig reclaims nearly all the product from the pipeline, so the same production line can be used for virtually any product, with minimal downtime between batches.
In this way, pigging improves production capacity, enhances flexibility, and enables manufacturers to meet the demand for greater product variety.
Preventing Aeration in Personal Care and Cosmetics Processing and Production
Aeration is where air circulates through, becomes mixed with, or dissolves in a liquid. This can be extremely problematic for some personal care and cosmetics products when travelling through pipelines, as it can cause foaming.
Foaming can be a problem when processing personal care and cosmetics products such as shampoos, shaving foams, and some types of gels.
That’s where pigging can help. One of the most effective ways to prevent aeration during liquid processing is to use an HPS Double-Pig Pigging System.
Double-Pig Pigging Systems, as the name implies, uses two separate pigs.
The Double-Pig system is ideal for processes where the product must not come into contact with air. The system enables the recovery of residual product from the pipe, while ensuring the efficient transfer of product. The pigs also seal the product from air in the pipe, to avoid air contact and aeration.
Improving Environmental Sustainability with a Pigging System
Sustainability has gone from a trend to an essential part of the personal care and cosmetics industry.
Personal care and cosmetics companies now integrate sustainability into product formulations, production processes, packaging, raw material sourcing, distribution plus much more.
Pigging systems are in incredibly effective way to improve environmental sustainability and lower carbon emissions.
Because HPS pigging systems save so much waste, water, cleaning chemicals, and related transport and disposal costs, the environmental benefits of pigging are significant.
Other Reasons Why Pigging is a Must-Have Investment
Other key benefits of pigging systems for personal care and cosmetics include improved efficiency and productivity. This is through higher yields, faster changeovers, waste reduction, increased processing capacity, decreased cleaning requirements, less water usage, and reduce chemical washouts. The result is higher profits.
Pigging systems also reduce contamination and cross-contamination risks, by recovering the vast majority of product from the pipe.
Importantly, pigging systems by HPS deliver major cost savings and tangible benefits. They increase profitability, improve the bottom line, and improve the competitiveness of personal care and cosmetics processing and production.
Therefore, it’s quite clear why pigging systems are becoming an essential, must-have investment in liquid processing plants throughout the world.
Find Out More
HPS have been in business since 1995 and have successfully implemented thousands of pigging systems throughout the world. This includes systems for leading brands including Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Kao, Loreal and many more. Our proven solutions deliver high ROI and rapid pigging system payback.
If you process personal care and cosmetics products, or just about any other liquid or wet product, and want to talk with one of our experts about improving your processes using HPS pigging and liquid product recovery technology, then please contact HPS.