Process installation

Everything needed to make a product in a plant: machines, tanks, pumps, piping, valves, sensors and the control system that runs it all. A single machine is not yet an installation. It becomes one only when a set of equipment is connected so that together it carries out the entire process, e.g. from receiving raw materials to filling bottles.

Example: A dairy wants to produce drinking yoghurt. A bottle filling machine on its own is not enough. It also needs a milk tank, a pasteuriser, a fermentation tank (where milk with bacterial cultures turns into yoghurt), a cooler, a buffer tank (an intermediate tank that collects the finished product so the filling line always has a steady supply) and, at the very end, the filling line itself. Add to that the piping, pumps, valves, sensors and controls. Only all of this together makes a process installation.