Skip to content

News Chevron

Johnson Matthey needed support to reduce extremely long and therefore costly cleaning cycles

Johnson Matthey UK site producing high value engineered products for use in the automotive sector.

Johnson Matthey historically flushed chemical lines on product/production changeover. They are working to exacting standards and the process lines have a requirement to be extremely clean and free from contamination. Historically, this may have taken several days, but more typically hours. Using Ice Pigging this was reduced to minutes.

Johnson Matthey needed support to reduce extremely long and therefore costly cleaning cycles

Share:

Posted on: 24th Apr 2022

Customer testimonial Johnson Matthey - UK manufacturing site

Johnson Matthey

Sustainability leaders, Johnson Matthey, use Ice Pigging for industrial line cleaning

Johnson Matthey, a global leader in applying sustainable technologies to cutting edge manufacturing, wanted to learn more about Ice Pigging. They had a very specific process challenge at one of their production facilities.

Ice Pigging proved to be a “game changer” in removing material from pipe systems, but most importantly, Ice Pigging was able to reduce the long flushing times associated with water to a matter of minutes with the Ice Pigging technology. "These time savings were achieved whilst also exceeding the extremely high-quality standards that Johnson Matthey’s production require".

"The benefits of the machine included:

  • A much faster and effective clean
  • Significantly reduced downtime
  • Reduced water consumption
  • Pro rata reduction in volumes for waste water treatment
  • Improved production efficiencies due to the ease and speed of delivery
  • Ice Pigging is used on multiple production lines at the site".

In some cases, Ice Pigging has been known to reduce industrial cleaning cycles substantially where a factory can experience a reduction in downtime from 8 hours of water flushing, down to less than two minutes with Ice Pigging.

For the Johnson Matthey process, the benefits of the Ice Pigging technology were immediately visibly apparent and later confirmed after laboratory tests by the Johnson Matthey process team.

The Ice Pigging technology is now being adopted by innovative companies like Johnson Matthey in other parts of the world, performing highly effective line cleaning, allowing production flexibility whilst at the same time helping companies reach sustainability targets.

We would like to thank the Johnson Matthey engineering and process teams for their support during the evaluation phase of the Ice Pigging equipment.


Ice Mixer
The NIV500 machine is designed to very high engineering standards, of stainless steel (316L) construction. The photo above is taken from inside the ice storage tank

Time saving

For many of our customers, time saving, without a reduction in quality and overall production output, is of course part of overall production efficiency. Ice Pigging offers these time savings along with improved quality due to improved system cleanliness. This then reduces risk and improved productivity due to reducing product "spoil" (and re-work) but also assists in ensuring system and product continuity and repeatability.

Related articles

  • US based Personal Care Customer Case Study

    Case Studies

    US based Personal Care Customer Case Study

    Posted on: 24th Apr 2022

    High levels of product recovery achieved with Nivalis NIV500 running in automatic control. Multiple…

    Read more Arrow
  • Ice Pigging Maritime Systems Case Study

    Case Studies

    Ice Pigging Maritime Systems Case Study

    Posted on: 24th Apr 2022

    We are proud to have supported the UK and Canadian defence sectors with Ice Pigging to clean…

    Read more Arrow
  • Ice Pigging Pharmaceutical Sector Case Study

    Case Studies

    Ice Pigging Pharmaceutical Sector Case Study

    Posted on: 24th Apr 2022

    Inspections at a customers site identified biofilm risk in the loops of a purified water…

    Read more Arrow

Find out how Ice Pigging could work for you

Get in touch to find out more about Ice Pigging and how we could help you.