Washdown is the process of high-pressure cleaning with water and/or chemicals in industries such as food and beverage and pharmaceuticals. A washdown is usually a manual operation and is designed to kill bacteria

Bacteria

Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...

and other micro-organisms. Automatic cleaning of industrial equipment is often carried out by clean-in-place (CIP) and/or steam-in-place (SIP) operations. CIP systems often make use of programmable controllers and SCADA software.