| 1 | Evaluate hygienic design | Use smooth, cleanable surfaces with minimal crevices, exposed threads, product traps, and horizontal ledges. Food-contact parts are commonly specified in stainless steel, with 304 used for many general applications and 316 preferred where chloride exposure or aggressive cleaning chemicals are significant. | Smooth welds Drainable surfaces No product traps
Request hygienic-design documentation aligned with recognized principles such as ISO 14159 or EN 1672-2 where applicable. | Poor hygienic design can retain food residue, increase cleaning time, and create contamination risks that become more difficult to control as production volume increases. |
| 2 | Match sanitation protection to the cleaning method | Select enclosure and component protection according to the actual washdown process. IP65 provides dust protection and protection against water jets; IP69K is intended for demanding high-pressure, high-temperature washdown conditions when the complete equipment design supports it. | Confirm the IP rating of motors, sensors, control panels, connectors, and cable glands individually. Check whether the machine is approved for dry cleaning, low-pressure washdown, or high-pressure washdown. | An enclosure rating alone does not make an entire machine washdown-safe. Incompatible seals, cable entries, or electrical components may lead to corrosion, water ingress, and unplanned downtime. |
| 3 | Compare cleaning and changeover time | Prefer tool-less or quick-release product-contact parts, removable guards where safe, open-access frames, and clearly separated product and non-product zones. The best machine is the one that meets the required throughput while minimizing total sanitation and changeover time. | Observe a complete cleaning and format-change demonstration using the intended product. Record the number of tools, operators, removable parts, steps, and minutes required. | A machine with a high nominal speed may deliver lower effective output if cleaning, inspection, and product changeovers are slow or require extensive disassembly. |
| 4 | Assess maintenance accessibility | Choose accessible lubrication points, clearly marked wear parts, diagnostic displays, modular assemblies, and readily replaceable belts, knives, seals, sensors, and heating elements. Preventive-maintenance tasks should be documented with defined intervals. | Ask for the preventive-maintenance schedule, spare-parts list, fault-history functions, and average replacement procedures. Verify that routine service can be performed without removing major machine structures. | Difficult access increases mean time to repair and may encourage maintenance shortcuts, causing repeated stoppages, inconsistent sealing, and premature component failure. |
| 5 | Verify guarding and functional safety | The machine should include fixed guards, interlocked access doors, emergency-stop devices, safe restart logic, and protection from crushing, cutting, drawing-in, hot-surface, and electrical hazards. Safety functions should be validated for the intended risk level. | Request a documented risk assessment and safety validation. Check whether the design follows applicable requirements such as ISO 12100, ISO 13849-1, and IEC 60204-1, together with local legal requirements. | High-speed conveyors, sealing jaws, knives, and indexing mechanisms can create serious hazards. Safety systems must prevent access to dangerous motion and must not be easily bypassed during production. |
| 6 | Check control, monitoring, and reject management | Look for recipe control, alarm history, speed and temperature monitoring, film-tracking control, seal-quality checks, and automatic rejection of defective packages where required. Data should be understandable to operators and maintenance personnel. | Test the machine with representative film, product sizes, and operating speeds. Confirm how it detects missing product, incorrect registration, open seals, temperature deviation, and repeated faults. | Without reliable monitoring, a machine may continue producing defective packages at high speed, increasing material waste, rework, customer complaints, and recall exposure. |
| 7 | Measure durability and total cost of ownership | Compare frame rigidity, bearing and drive selection, corrosion resistance, thermal management, component service life, spare-parts availability, energy use, and warranty terms. Evaluate performance over the complete production life rather than purchase price alone. | Request documented factory acceptance-test results, maximum continuous operating conditions, recommended spare parts, expected service intervals, utility consumption, and references for similar duty cycles without relying on brand-specific claims. | Undersized drives, inadequate cooling, unsuitable seals, and weak frames can cause vibration, registration errors, seal defects, and accelerated wear during continuous high-speed operation. |
