Cleaning in place (CIP)

Milk processing and handling equipment/containers are desired to be clean, dry and sanitized to prevent cross contamination of milk/milk product during handling & processing operations. Small and simple construction equipment could be manually cleaned with hand brushes and detergents. Some times these equipment/containers are dismantled and their parts are cleaned/sanitized individually. Some of this type of containers could also be cleaned through specially designed washing machines like can/crate washers. However there are number of other equipment, containers and processing circuits, which have very compact design and not possible to clean manually or they are so larger in size that unsuitable for cleaning in washing machines. This type of equipment and containers are preferably cleaned by special cleaning procedure termed as “Cleaning-In-Place or CIP”.

In the CIP process number of cleaning operations are performed on the equipment/container/processing circuits one by one in certain sequence according to the plant hygiene programme. In this way instead of taking equipment/containers to the detergent solution or washing machine for cleaning/sanitizing, the flushing/cleaning/sanitizing solutions are taken to them through specially designed cleaning system.

The experiments and industry experiences have shown highly effective result from the CIP system along with several other benefits in terms of saving of manpower,time and chemicals. The effectiveness of CIP system is largely dependant on factors like time,temperature, detergency and physical action involved The equipment susceptible to this technique of cleaning are said to be of CIP design. Most significant CIP design dairy process equipment include: milk chiller,milk pasteurizer, milk tanks/silo, evaporator/dryer, milk process line, milk tankers,etc.