Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Cad tool for automatic and smart hygienic design assessment
Coordinator
Standard protocols (ISO), whole genome sequencing (WGS), computational methodologies, and MetaOmic approaches (metagenomics, metatrascriptomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, culturomics and phenomics) will be applied for the identification and characterization of the new and (re)-emerging chemical and biological hazards in traditional products, related to climate changes, microbial evolution, and modifications in the manufacturing processes. Omics techniques will also be applied to study factors affecting the survival and the stress resistance mechanisms of pathogens and antimicrobial resistant (AMR) bacteria during food processing and shelf life. In addition, a CAD-based automatic feature recognition procedure will be developed for hygienic design of food machinery, as a prerequisite for GMP in food production.
Report on procedure for auto recognition of features critical for hygienic design (M36)
At the legislative level, the "Hygiene Package" has been in force in Europe since 2006, which defines a set of rules governing food hygiene and safety and the related controls. In the field of food machinery, the most important standard is the "Machine Directive" (2006/42/EC and various voluntary regulations, drawn up by CEN and ISO, and later the EHEDG - European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group), which was created to support food hygiene and safety in food processing.
The standard is quite broad and complex and the risk for the designer is therefore to realize not compliant machines and equipment, with consequent risks of i) losing time and costs in design reviews; ii) refurbish machine(s) sold; iii) create hygiene risks for the consumer. At the current state of the art, it has been noted that there is still a lack of a systematic procedure to assist engineers and designers of food plants, which can integrate theory (guidelines) and practice (CAD development environment).
To overcome the limitations highlighted in the state of art, the following activities are planned:
The plug-in software tool will be developed and tested in two different environments: (i) a desktop application commonly used in technical design departments, and (ii) an immersive virtual reality system. The room will be open to companies for experimenting advantages of virtual design review process.
At the end of the project, the main outcome of the project will be a plug-in for for CAD softwares for auto recognition of features critical for hygienic design, that is able to detect design issues in in compliance with the most common standards used for Hygienic Design of food processing machines. During the early phases of product development process, the designer can make use of this DfH (Design for Hygienic) software which, in parallel with the CAD environment, verifies compliance with all the database rules on the designed model. If one or more rules fail, the DfH graphical user interface (DfH GUI) notifies the user of the failed rules and provides details and suggestions for correcting them. The procedure will be available both in normal and in immersive design environments.
