How to Calculate Return on Investment from a Product Recovery (Pigging) System
Pigging system payback – It Will Save You More Than You Think….
No matter how large or small your business, it’s important you achieve a good return on investment (ROI) from any capital purchase you make. Buying a product recovery or pigging system is no different.
Pigging systems have many clear benefits, such as reducing waste, making changeover times quicker and generally making life a lot easier. Properly designed and installed, a pigging system will soon increase the efficiency of your operations and pay for itself relatively quickly. But, like any project, you need to quantify the savings you expect to make and calculate your pigging system and product recovery system ROI as accurately as possible. And a pigging system could save you more than you might think.
Start with our Savings Calculator
The amount of product recovered is often the key objective of a pigging system, and a major source of savings. So, it’s product recovery that forms the basis of the figures shown by the HPS pigging system savings calculator. This handy tool is a good starting point when working out pigging system systems savings, pigging system payback and ROI. It will give you a quick, easy and reasonably accurate estimate of how much a pigging system could save your business in terms of the value of product you are likely to recover every time you pig your system.
Product Recovery Increases Yield
When properly designed and implemented, a hygienic product recovery system will save nearly all the product you would have previously disposed of. So, rather than being washed down the drain, sent to a waste collection area, waste treatment facility or similar, you can continue to process, use, package, store or sell your perfectly good product and increase your profits. It will be in the same condition as the rest of the product in the pipe: unaltered and uncontaminated.
It’s important to note that very few pigging systems (if any) can recover 100% of the product. This is due to design restrictions, for example on pig launcher or receiver locations, which mean a tiny amount of the product cannot be recovered. However, HPS solutions will typically recovery up to 99.5% of product.
Other Considerations When Estimating ROI
While the pigging system savings calculator is a great tool to get started and give you a handy cost estimate of product recovery system ROI, every pigging system is different. More importantly, there are several areas in which product recovery and pigging solutions can save you money and benefit your organisation that may not be so obvious. To accurately work out return on investment to justify your purchase and expenditure, it’s important to take all of these factors in to account and include them in any detailed investment calculations.
Many businesses have predefined or set methods for calculating payback time and ROI. So rather than go in to different calculation methods, here are some tips, ideas and recommendations of the areas you should think about and take into account when estimating the savings and calculating the return on investment. These are equally applicable to new plant, or pigging systems fitted within existing pipeline or processes.
Savings from the Pigging Process
A good quality, well-designed and correctly implemented pigging system will significantly reduce the amount of product that is normally wasted. While this is of course an important part of your product recovery system ROI calculations, waste is not just the volume of product lost. Waste also includes the fluid used to evacuate the product and the power consumed in making this happen. What’s more, the waste will also need to be treated. Some products need more treatment than others. Whatever the product is, to a greater or lesser degree the cost of waste treatment will include chemical, transport, power and human resources.
Quicker, More Effective Cleaning
Pipeline product recovery reduces cleaning times, and the subsequent savings in staff time can be substantial. With some highly viscous products, for example, it can take many minutes, even hours to manually clean a pipe properly. It can also use significant amounts of water or cleaning fluid.
A pigging system can remove nearly all the product in a pipe in a few seconds. This leaves your staff free to concentrate on more important and productive tasks and enables your processing to continue with minimal interruption. Pigging and CIP go hand in hand, because as well as saving time, it also saves on power, water, detergents or other cleaning products. A further benefit is that in some circumstances, for example where there’s no significant change in colour, flavouring, fragrance, ingredients or similar, pigging may eliminate the need for washouts or secondary cleaning altogether.
Faster Batch Changeovers
Because pigging is much quicker and more effective than manual cleaning or manual product recovery processes, it significantly reduces batch changeover times. This increases available production time, reduces power and enables your staff to perform other tasks. So, if possible, you should add these to your product recovery system ROI calculations.
Pigging Removes Cleaning Residue Which Increases Efficiency
Even when you’ve cleaned a system using a washout method, it is often necessary to run your product through it for a while until it is no longer diluted by the water or cleaning fluid. Depending on the product, the amount you need to run off before the product is within specification for use, filling or storage can be substantial. However, if you pig the system after cleaning (whether this was by washout or clean in place), it will remove water and cleaning fluid residue. This prevents product dilution or contamination at the start of a new product batch. Once again, pigging saves product, reduces waste and increases efficiency.
Prevents Aeration Problems
With some products, foaming, aeration or oxygen pick up can cause major issues, especially when a new batch process begins. HPS has worked with many organisations to successfully eliminate foaming and aeration problems in liquid processing. One of the most effective ways of preventing aeration and related issues is by using a Double Pig System. This ensures your product will be uncontaminated by air and within specification when it reaches its process destination. So if aeration is a current or potential issue in your production process which pigging will eliminate, it is important to include the efficiency gains and waste reduction savings in your product recovery system ROI calculations.
Reduces Pipe Maintenance
Pigging pipelines does more than just transfer and recover product. In many processes, pigging will maintain your pipe integrity by preventing material build up on the pipe walls. Without pigging, it may be necessary to shut down the process from time to time and clean the pipes manually. As well as the cost of downtime, this also incurs labour costs. Depending on the pipe material and products, it could even need a replacement pipe. Therefore, pipe maintenance reduction is a further consideration when calculating pigging system ROI.
More Environmentally Friendly
Most companies take their environmental responsibilities extremely seriously. The environmental benefits of pigging are well established, and by reducing waste, using less water and cleaning fluids, decreasing power consumption and increasing overall process efficiency, HPS Product Recovery Solutions can go a long way in reducing your organisation’s carbon footprint. As well as these direct reductions, it can also have a less tangible, but nevertheless important impact in other areas outside of your business. For example, less waste means less transport requirements, less wear and tear on roads, lower exhaust emissions and even less traffic congestion.
Improves Your Business Reputation
Being seen to be actively reducing your carbon footprint will enhance your organisation’s reputation among your staff and employees, as well as customers and suppliers. This in turn can lead to increased brand loyalty, improved company image and even increased sales. Although difficult to quantify, reduced carbon footprint should be a consideration in your pigging system and product recovery ROI assessments.
Contact the Pigging System and Product Recovery Specialists
Since 1995, HPS has been at the forefront of innovation in hygienic and sanitary product recovery systems. We have successfully deployed thousands of systems worldwide. With this extensive experience, our experts can recommend the best solution for your organisation, and help you accurately calculate costings, return on investment and pay back periods.
For more information on the return on investment a product recovery or pigging system could bring to your organisation, including detailed pigging system payback and ROI calculations, to talk to an HPS expert about the best system for your plant and process, or for pricing or cost information, please get in touch.