Less time cleaning, more time baking - and a lot of saving

After production, cleaning staff spent hours with hoses and brushes trying to remove baked-on product from the belt.

Continually swabbing the floor to remove wastewater was crucial in the low-moisture environment and required significant manpower.

Cleaning was slow, labour-intensive, and ate into production time.

The goal was clear: use an automated cleaning system on the belt to replace as much manual work as possible and reduce cleaning time – without compromising hygiene.

The existing method had obvious drawbacks. Cleaning the belt took many hours, much of it spent on long rinses to soften and flush away dried product and grease. A sizeable crew was tied up in the process just to get the belt back to a “good enough” state for the next shift.

Production wanted more oven uptime without extending the working day, so the only realistic lever was to cut belt cleaning time and reduce manual scrubbing.

To address this, the manufacturer implemented an automated cleaning system for the baking oven conveyor belt, replacing most manual hose work. A fixed cleaning sequence was introduced to clean the belt in a controlled, repeatable way.

The automated process then ran through three main steps:

1. Pre-rinse – to soften and flush away loose and dried-on deposits on the belt.
2. Foam application – to break down remaining baked-on and greasy residues.
3. Final rinse – to remove loosened soils and chemical residues.    

After application, the belt speed ensures proper contact time for the foam before the final rinse.

Timings and nozzle settings were tested and adjusted until a good balance between effective cleaning and minimal downtime was achieved. Stainless-steel covers were installed to stop water and foam that passes through the mesh belt from dispersing into the surrounding area.

Wastewater was collected and drained right below the installation, releasing cleaning staff for other tasks.

With the automated cleaning programme in place, total cleaning time for the belt was cut by around 50% compared to the manual routine. The long, labour-intensive rinses were replaced by a controlled sequence in which the nozzles did most of the heavy lifting.

In everyday terms, this meant:

• Cleaning slots became shorter and easier to plan around production.
• The manufacturer gained more consistent cleaning results because the same procedure was repeated every time.

Because the automated programme controls water, chemicals and labour far more tightly than manual cleaning, it reduces both cleaning resources and cost. Compared to the manual routine, the automated belt cleaning delivers significant reductions:
 

In terms of financial impact, most of it comes from the extra production time gained by the shorter cleaning times, valued at about €4.950 per month.

When labour, time, water, and chemicals are combined, the total benefit is roughly €5.250 per month, or around €63,000 per year.

While not the main objective, the significant water savings achieved with automated cleaning are a clear added benefit that makes a strong business case.

The baking oven conveyor case shows that an automated belt cleaning system can:

• Replace a large part of manual cleaning along a hot, hard-to-reach conveyor.
• Cut belt cleaning time, opening up more hours for baking instead of cleaning.
• Deliver a measurable annual saving, while providing more consistent cleaning results.

In short, the manufacturer moved from long, manual belt rinses to a repeatable, automated cleaning process that saves time, reduces labour and improves performance for the baking line.