Service

Process Engineering & Design for Food and Beverage Facilities

Every capital dollar your facility spends is either validated or wasted by the quality of its process engineering. DPS delivers fully integrated food process design — from initial P&ID development through utility load calculations and final facility layout — so your project hits production targets on day one, not month six. We engineer the process first, then build around it.

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DPS · Process Engineering & Design
Automation and Controls
Construction Risk Factors

Challenges in Providing This Service in the Market

Most food and beverage facility projects do not fail during construction. They fail during engineering — or more precisely, because engineering was never done with sufficient rigor. When a mid-market processor expands without a complete process engineering package, the consequences compound quietly: equipment arrives and does not fit the allocated footprint, utility capacity falls short at peak production, CIP circuits cannot reach new process zones, and the contractor builds exactly what the drawings show — even when the drawings are wrong. By the time these gaps surface during commissioning, the budget has already absorbed six figures in avoidable change orders and the production launch date has slipped by weeks or months.

  • Challenge 01

    Disconnected Design and Execution

    Facility layouts created by one firm, equipment specified by another, and utilities sized by a third produce drawings that technically exist but do not actually coordinate. Pipe routes conflict with structural steel, electrical panels block maintenance access, and drain capacity is calculated against the wrong production volume.

  • Challenge 02

    Missing Load Calculations

    Without accurate thermal, electrical, refrigeration, and water demand calculations tied to real production schedules, utility systems are either chronically undersized or dramatically over-built. Both outcomes destroy your project ROI.

  • Challenge 03

    Compliance Gaps Discovered Late

    When FDA, USDA, SQF, or BRC requirements are layered onto a design after the fact rather than engineered in from the start, the result is expensive retrofits — sanitary floor coatings ripped out and re-poured, wall panels replaced, drainage re-graded — that should never have been necessary.

  • Challenge 04

    No Single Source of Process Truth

    When P&IDs, equipment specs, utility diagrams, and control narratives live in separate files from separate vendors, no one owns the integrated process. Errors hide between scopes.
The DPS Solution

Building Scalable and Efficient Production Systems

DPS approaches process engineering as the foundational discipline of every food and beverage capital project — not as a preliminary checkbox before construction begins. Our in-house engineering team spans six disciplines: structural, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, process, and controls. That means the engineer developing your P&ID design is working in the same office as the controls programmer who will write your PLC logic and the project manager who will oversee installation. There is no handoff gap, no translation layer, and no finger-pointing between firms.

Our Design-Build-Manage model means that process engineering is never an isolated deliverable. Every facility layout we produce accounts for the equipment we will fabricate, the piping our crews will install, the utilities our mechanical engineers will size, and the automation sequences our controls team will program. When DPS draws a P&ID, it is not a theoretical document — it is a construction-ready blueprint backed by a team that will be held accountable for the result on the production floor.

We also operate as a business advisor before we operate as an engineering firm. Capital planning, ROI analysis, and phased expansion roadmaps are built into our process engineering scope because a technically brilliant facility layout that does not pencil financially is a failed design. DPS has turned down profitable engineering contracts when our feasibility analysis showed the client’s project would not generate adequate returns. That same discipline led one client to discover that a simple PLC adjustment — delivered at no charge — resolved a $3M capacity constraint, eliminating the need for a capital project entirely. They later engaged DPS for a $6M facility relocation because they trusted our judgment.

Key Capabilities

Capabilities Supporting Modern Production Operations

Integrated engineering, operational, and project capabilities designed to support efficient, scalable, and reliable production environments.

  • PLC Programming & Logic Development

    Custom ladder logic, structured text, and function block programs developed on Allen-Bradley, Siemens, and other major platforms for process control, safety interlocks, and high-speed sequencing across food and beverage unit operations.

  • SCADA System Design & Deployment

    Full supervisory control and data acquisition architecture including server configuration, real-time process visualization, historical trending, and role-based access designed for multi-line F&B production environments.

  • Recipe Management & Batch Control

    ISA-88-aligned recipe structures that allow production teams to manage formulations, ingredient scaling, and batch sequencing directly from the HMI — reducing changeover time and eliminating manual transcription errors.

  • CIP/SIP Automation & Validation

    Automated clean-in-place and sterilize-in-place sequences with full parametric data logging for FDA and USDA compliance, integrated with process scheduling to minimize non-productive time between production runs.

  • Energy & Utility Management Systems

    Real-time monitoring and automated control of boiler, compressed air, glycol, refrigeration, and HVAC systems to reduce per-unit energy cost while maintaining critical environmental parameters in temperature-sensitive processing areas.

  • Controls Integration & Retrofits

    Integration of new automation layers into existing brownfield facilities — migrating legacy relay logic or outdated DCS platforms to modern PLC/SCADA infrastructure without extended production shutdowns.
The DPS Integrated Advantage

Engineering Scope & Deliverables

Every DPS process engineering engagement produces a defined set of deliverables scoped to the project’s complexity, regulatory environment, and production objectives.

Scope Area DPS Deliverables
Process Flow & P&ID Package Process flow diagrams (PFDs), piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs), equipment data sheets, line lists, and instrument index — all formatted to ISA-5.1 standards
Facility Layout Dimensioned floor plans with equipment placement, personnel flow paths, utility routing corridors, maintenance clearance zones, and phased expansion boundaries
Utility Load Analysis Peak simultaneous demand calculations for steam (BTU/hr), refrigeration (tons), compressed air (CFM), electrical (kVA), process water (GPM), and wastewater (GPD with BOD/TSS projections)
Sanitary & Compliance Design Zone classification maps, material finish specifications (wall, floor, ceiling), drainage slope calculations, CIP circuit coverage diagrams, allergen control zoning, and USDA/FDA/SQF/BRC design compliance narratives
Controls & Automation Specification Control system architecture, I/O point schedule, PLC/SCADA hardware specification, network topology diagram, control narrative descriptions for all automated process sequences
Capital Budget & ROI Model Engineer’s opinion of probable cost, phased capital expenditure schedule, production capacity modeling, and ROI projection tied to throughput and labor assumptions
Project Coverage All 50 U.S. states and Canada — with DPS offices in Cary, NC and Lake Forest, CA providing East Coast and West Coast project coordination
Project Verification Questions

Common Questions About Automation & Controls Service

Quick answers to the questions we hear most often from prospective clients evaluating automation partners.

Before anything else. Process engineering should be the first investment in any food or beverage facility project — before equipment is quoted, before architects draw elevations, and before general contractors submit bids. At DPS, our process engineering package defines the scope that every other discipline builds from. Starting here prevents the most expensive category of project errors: building the wrong facility correctly.
Absolutely. A significant share of our process engineering work involves retrofit and expansion projects inside operating facilities. We survey existing conditions, verify as-built accuracy against actual field installations, calculate remaining utility capacity, and design the expansion to integrate with current infrastructure. Every P&ID we produce for an expansion project shows both existing and new systems on the same drawing so nothing falls between scopes.
We design for the most stringent applicable standard at every point in the facility and clearly delineate jurisdiction boundaries in the layout and compliance documentation. Our engineering team has direct experience with dual-jurisdiction facilities and builds zone separation, sanitary finishes, and CIP coverage to satisfy both USDA-FSIS and FDA requirements without redundant construction. SQF and BRC audit readiness is layered into the same design package.
For a mid-market project in the DPS range of $400K to $5M+, the process engineering and design phase typically runs six to twelve weeks depending on facility complexity, number of process lines, and regulatory scope. We front-load this investment deliberately — a thorough engineering package compresses the overall project timeline by eliminating design-driven change orders during construction. Clients who skip or compress process engineering routinely lose more weeks during construction than they saved during design.
No. Our process engineering deliverables are complete, construction-ready packages that any qualified contractor can execute. That said, our Design-Build-Manage model exists because project outcomes measurably improve when the team that engineered the process also builds and commissions it. The integration eliminates the interpretation errors that occur when a separate contractor builds from drawings they did not create.