GOTAFE Student Saves Water
GOTAFE Certificate IV Food Science and Technology student Ben Finlayson has undertaken a class assessment and saved 60,000 litres of water per week for his production line at employer, Sungold Milk.
GOTAFE Certificate IV Food Science and Technology student Ben Finlayson has undertaken a class assessment and saved 60,000 litres of water per week and 100 litres of caustic per day for his production line at employer, Sungold Milk.
Sungold is the fresh milk brand of Australia's oldest milk dairy company, Warrnambool Cheese & Butter. Its products can be found in many supermarkets, cafes and milk bars throughout Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia.
Mr. Finlayson has been studying at GOTAFE since April 2019. His project was based on reducing water usage at his work site via Clean in Place (CIP) reduction at the plant. An optimised CIP process can reduce cleaning times, thereby reducing water usage.
Ben assessed the current CIP process and identified that average water usage on a Sunday was 90,000 litres. He aimed to reduce this by half and set about working with the Quality Administrator to ensure that the reduction of CIP didn't affect the quality of the product.
After carrying out CIP validation, the proposed CIP changes commenced. Due to this, Ben was able to reduce the Sunday water usage from 108,000 litres down to 48,000 litres, a reduction of 60,000 litres.
Sungold see this as a very successful result as it is not only a cost saving measure for the business, who now does not have to purchase and treat the water, but is also of great benefit to the environment.
"This is a great example of the real-world learning our students undertake when studying with GOTAFE. They can apply what they learn from our expert industry trainers, in their workplace to achieve outstanding results such as this."
Ben is now looking to the future with his next project, which will involve reducing the water usage during CIP on the Ultra Filtration plant.
Ben would like to thank the GOTAFE staff for providing the knowledge and opportunity to carry out this project. Also, a special thank you to Kyle Rodger, Nicola Perry and Jackey Tejano from Sungold, as they drove and supported this project from start to finish.