Medical Device Link.

AUTOMATION

In the last decade, packaging has been changing dramatically. As marketing comes up with innovative designs, operations has to figure out a way to create these packages. Every innovation brings its own challenges. Mail fulfillment is a booming market. Oral thin-film products are becoming popular and require very customized handling and packaging. All forms of compliance packaging are at the forefront: both child-resistant and dosing aids. Automation has been developed for standardized packaging such as daily-dose blister pack wallets, but many unique and proprietary packages are appearing for which no standardized equipment exists and the automation must be designed from scratch.

Uhlmann Packaging Systems LP’s SimTap 3 feeder is a versatile system for a larger variety of product shapes.

Kitting is also a challenge. Kits can combine any number of components and all of these pieces must be handled, but rarely using the same solution.

Automation reduces packaging cost and increases accuracy. The trade-off is that the more a company automates, the more capital they will need to invest in the equipment. Therefore, the challenge is finding the right fit.

IT’S IN THE BAG

For product fulfillment, changing from boxes to bags offers significant savings in package price and shipping cost. Automating the bagging process adds speed and reduced labor to the equation. How much to automate is the decision to make.

Automated Packaging Systems (Streetsboro, OH) is known as the originator of preopened bags on a roll, with its most famous brand being called AutoBag. The company also manufactures packaging machines and provides a field service network. Solutions are designed to be flexible. “You can load our bags into the machine manually or semiautomatically. You could have a conveyor automatically loading products into the bags and feeding through,” says Chris Rempe, product manager. “Many options are available to help reduce cost.”

A recent fully automated system provided not only an automated bagging and sealing process, but also printed directly on the mail bag. This reduced both labor and material costs by eliminating the need to stock, store, print, and apply labels to shipping bags. The technology is now in wide use by major pharmacies using central distribution for direct mail fulfillment.

Sharp Packaging Systems, (Sussex, WI) is also in the bags-on-a-roll automation area. National sales manager Bart Gaffney says that the firm manufactures everything from 2.5 × 3-in. all the way up to a 20 × 30-in. bags; automated machinery provides full processing.

Sharp systems are based on a completely open platform. “Integrators love to work with us,” Gaffney says. “Our systems are built with all nonproprietary parts. Not only do we give end-users our part numbers, but we also give them the corresponding part numbers for other brands of parts that are interchangeable. If they are out in the field and they need to do repair, they have compatible part numbers to use for all the components so they can fix the machine and get right back up and running.”

ADDING ROBOTS

While still less prevalent in pharmaceutical and medical packaging than in other industries, robotics use is growing. Most large companies have extensive experience with automation, but even for them, the move to using robots can be daunting. “It is often an educational process when introducing multiaxis robots into an application where they have been using hard-tooled automation, but hard-tooled automation has limitations,” says Walter Langosch, director of sales and marketing for ESS Technologies Inc. (Blacksburg, VA). “These include lack of flexibility and high maintenance and operation costs.

The manufacturing and packaging process for oral strips on this Doyen Medipharm Inc. machine includes splitting and cutting the strip to size, packaging, collating, and cartoning all in one continuous-motion process.

“It isn’t a big technology jump to get comfortable with operating robots,” Langosch adds. “As a FANUC distributor, we always have robots at our facility for demonstration. Because they are so flexible, we often ask potential customers to send us their parts and then come in and watch the robots actually handle their packaging process. Showing them how it’s programmed and letting them play with it removes the intimidation factor.”

As a system integrator, ESS provides both custom hard-tooled automation and automation using robotics. When a manufacturer of diagnostic test kits for a hospital needed to automate its process, a hard-tooled/robotic combination was the answer. The process included test kit assembly, inspection of completed kits, and high-speed tray loading for additional downstream processing. Inspection required a vision system and incorporated automatic reject of incorrect kits. Working with the customer, ESS engineered the Model MB 40 monoblock assembly machine to create a complete system that handles the process at 40 kits per minute.

After inspection, good kits moved to a TaskMate robotic cell where a FANUC LR Mate 200iB robot and ESS-designed end-of-arm tooling depucked the kits and placed them into trays. Empty trays returned to the start of the process to be loaded with test tubes, while completed kits moved to secondary packaging.

SECONDARY PACKAGING

Such secondary packaging automation puts equipment from companies such as MGS Machine Corp. (Maple Grove, MN) in the spotlight. Richard Bahr, president and CEO, states while MGS has a broad product range, all are very modular in design and most become platforms from which customized solutions for secondary packaging are developed.

MGS typically focuses on very-high-speed, high-volume needs. However, Bahr notes that the company also frequently gets many applications for new product introductions. “This probably relates to the fact that MGS is well known as a company that can provide highly custom solutions,” he says.

Multivac (Kansas City, MO) is also known for its packaging equipment, but often customers also require an extra level of automation. That’s when Justin Pottorf, automation products manager, steps in. “Justin’s job is to manage entire projects, such as bringing in the different vendors that provide everything needed for fully automated lines,” Jerry Hirsh, marketing manager, says. “The goal is to make the entire packaging automation line successful.”

While the lion’s share of Multivac products are thermoforming machines for high-volume form-fill-seal automation, Multivac also makes very specialized vacuum chamber systems. “This is more of a manual process where people are loading very expensive medical products, such as implantable devices and combination products, into a pouch,” Hirsh says. “So not all our products are for high volume; it depends on the end product and use.”

Uhlmann Packaging Systems LP USA (Towaco, NJ) also plays different roles. The company is a pharmaceutical machine manufacturer/integrator that works only with end-users. Dirk Corsten, managing director, explains that its forté is providing turnkey solutions. “If a customer needs something we don’t build, we buy it and integrate it into our line,” he says. “We pride ourselves on having equipment that is very efficient, with very low follow-up costs. Because our equipment is recipe driven, the operator interface is absolute minimum. We offer fully automatic changeover. The operator simply goes into the HMI (human machine interface) and calls up the new recipe, and the machine will move all components into the right spot.”

In terms of total automation, Uhlmann systems are SCADA based (supervisory control and data acquisition). “It is the whole package—not just for our equipment but for everything we integrate upstream and downstream from our machines,” Corsten says. “The manager can watch the whole line. We have a large library of interfaces to talk with other equipment and integrate into our SCADA architecture.”

AUTOMATION COMPONENTS

Not all automation comes in the form of custom systems. For those wanting to build solutions in-house, Cam Driven Systems (CDS; Sparta, NJ) manufactures motion controls, devices, and subsystems for high-speed automation.

President Robert Zaruba reports that “companies that make very proprietary products often build much of their own automation equipment. When they need very high speed and high volume in a dedicated automation machine and it needs to be very precise, that is our area. We may just sell them a component for a specific station, or a whole subsystem that takes a few different areas of the machine and ties them all together so it can work faster or provide more flexibility.”

CDS also works closely with system integrators and OEM machine builders. “They come to us and we will assist them in choosing the right combination of drives and components from our products and help them tie it all together,” Zaruba says. “We help them create a real model of what they want to do using products they often din’t even know existed.”

One such CDS solution involved the assembly and packaging of a range of sizes and designs of spray nozzles used in pharmaceutical-delivery containers. Each model required a different type of container packaging.

“The company was running about 40 parts per minute, and together we built a customized system that could handle the product packaging and allow them to ramp up to 80 parts per minute. Instead of buying another machine and setting up two lines, they invested in one machine that took care of the production speed and accuracy they needed today and was flexible enough to adapt to the changes they would see in the next year,” Zaruba says.

SUPPLIER HANDSHAKES

Test kits enter an ESS Technologies automated vision inspection area.

While many companies avoid the more complicated packaging applications, Doyen Medipharm Inc. (Lakeland, FL) seeks them out. “We provide flexible low- and high-volume four-side-seal packaging solutions as well as thermoforming packaging solutions,” says Martin Beriswill, vice president of operations.

Doyen has partnered with J-PAC, a contract manufacturing facility. “The Doyen/J-PAC alliance enables us to assist customers with product and package design development and production of samples for market and stability studies. It is also a source if they don’t want to produce in-house,” Beriswill explains.

Beriswill adds that there can be several reasons to go the contract manufacturing route. It may be a declining product that still has some profit value, but where production space is better used for a rising-star product. It could be just the opposite; a new product that still doesn’t have enough market share to justify investment in a full production line. “It offers a great way to test products with minimal corporate risk,” he adds. “It also ensures creating a package designed for manufacturability.”

On the development side, Doyen broke new ground recently with a system to handle the needs of oral thin-film packaging. Beriswill states that initially there was no equipment available to handle the unique packaging application until they worked with customers and developed the process. “The manufacturing and packaging process includes splitting and cutting the strip to size, packaging, collating, and cartoning, all in one continuous-motion process,” he says.

Doyen worked with other equipment manufacturers to develop a full production line. Some key equipment integrated into this unique system includes Hartnett flexographic or HP-type noncontact printers, Markem laser printers, and a high-end vision system from Micron PharmaWorks for final inspection.

“The entire converting, packaging, and cartoning process is supplied with IQ/OQ validation documentation to satisfy FDA’s requirement to confirm the reliability and repeatability of the oral thin-film production equipment,” Beriswill says.

For cartoning of the packaged product, an MGS Stealth continuous-motion cartoning system takes over. “It receives the finished packages from the Doyen HDW packaging machine, and collates them into the proper count, delivers those products, along with literature, into the customer’s display carton and glues the carton,” Beriswill adds. “Finally, the production system delivers the package and cartoned product for manual case packing. The lines are currently achieving production speeds in excess of 1500 packs per minute.”

Sharp also has a special alliance going for it. The company partners with system integrator Maverick Systems (Longmont, CO). Maverick develops fully integrated pharmaceutical packaging for most of the largest end-users in the industry. “They manufacture the systems in-house and integrate our baggers,” Gaffney says. “We test and program the baggers for them to the specific needs of an individual system and then they provide the system to the end-user.”

STUMBLING BLOCKS

When discussing any level of automation, some key challenges always arise. By avoiding these pitfalls, a company can experience much smoother packaging application automation.

• Look to the future. It’s better to grow into a system you already have than to find that you suddenly need to buy a completely new one.
• Match the application to the type of automation. Is this a high-volume, same-product need that would fit hard-tooled automation, or will the needs be continually changing, requiring something more flexible or even robotics?
• Look at what’s not working. Before searching for an automation solution, take a good look at the existing production line and what key issues or areas are causing problems. Multivac did this to help a major pharmaceutical company increase throughput. “The challenge with this particular product was that it needed to be packaged twice, with different materials and various inspections throughout both packaging processes,” Pottorf explains. “By watching how the semiautomated process was currently functioning on the plant floor, we were able to eliminate unnecessary steps and put together a two-machine system with a fully automated transfer system.”
• Learn the difference between speed and need. Being faster is not always the answer, as illustrated in this example from Uhlmann. “This customer was running equipment at 45 cycles per minute with an output that was 180 blisters per minute,” Corsten says. “But the fitting efficiency was only about 85%. We developed another feeder using a pick-and-place style unit. It could handle even the most unusually shaped products. However, it reduced speed from 45 to 20 cycles per minute—but with fitting efficiency of 99.9%. At the end of the day, the customer was very happy,” Corsten says. “The machine was half as fast, but the yield of good-quality product was higher than anything he had ever experienced.”
• Be truthful with vendors. If your product isn’t finalized, don’t say it is just to get comparable quotes. A much better tactic is to say that the product is almost there, but there will likely be changes. Ask the vendors how they would handle those changes. Maybe even give them some “what if” scenarios such as, “If we were to change this carton, what would be the approximate cost and how would it affect lead time?” Recently MGS helped a customer with a unique packaging format—a CR device at the F=1 level with two separate parts that needed assembly and then filling before final packaging. “While they had their initial design, we quickly noted that there was an opportunity to help them in the final,” Bahr says. “We convinced them to create this as a one-piece device that would simply open to allow us to load it, close it, and then weld it shut,” he says. “We were able to deliver to the customer on time and under budget with a system that met all their requirements for speed and accuracy. And we were able to do this with less equipment than we originally quoted.”

Every type of automation solution is available. It is just a matter of finding the right level and the right fit. By first knowing the process well and then looking for the right supplier, integrator or automation partner, virtually anything can be accomplished.