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Synchronized lines, rather than individual pieces of equipment, will be a focus of pharmaceutical manufacturers, predicts PMMI’s Ben Miyares. In this exclusive Q&A interview with Healthcare Packaging, Miyares addresses multiple healthcare packaging-related issues, including mechatronics and robotics, which, he says, "have the potential to transform the development of packaging equipment." He also looks at sustainability, packaging equipment purchase considerations, E-machinery, and counterfeiting topics.
A new course, Packaging Line Performance Workshop, will give packagers the skills, tools, and knowledge they require to improve the efficiency of their packaging lines. Produced by Packaging World, the two-day intensive workshop teaches attendees the fundamentals of packaging line performance improvement. Attendees will learn how to measure OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) on their packaging lines, and will come away with practical experience to put to immediate use.
Nowhere in packaging are flexibility and fast changeover more necessary than in the contract-packaging arena, where multiple customers and their many SKUs are a fact of life. That’s why ease of changeover was a key machine characteristic sought by Brecon Pharmaceuticals recently when it came time to install a new line for blister packing and cartoning of tablets. This fast-growing contract packager, acquired last year by Amerisource Bergen, is located in the UK near the town of Brecon, Wales. Both thermoforming and cold-forming of foil are routinely done on this new and highly versatile blister-pack line.
In this question-and-answer interview, Andrew Billington (shown), operations manager at Brecon Pharmaceuticals in Wales, addresses recent trends in packaging. What is he looking for in new packaging machinery? Billington says: "Quicker changeover and anything that facilitates GMPs [Good Manufacturing Practices] are at the top of the list. Both are especially important for a contract packager because our runs can be quite short. Added changeover pressure can also come from the multiple languages we deal with here in Europe. That’s something our counterparts in the United States do not have to face."
Packaging Hall of Fame inductee Edward J. Bauer, investigative reporter and award-winning author Katherine Eban, and Joint Equipment Transition Team (JETT) Chairman Jim John are among the speakers scheduled to make presentations at the upcoming Pharmaceutical Packaging Forum (PPF) 2008. Produced by Healthcare Packaging and Packaging World magazines, the event will be held on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at The Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia, the same venue that hosted the initial PPF March 29, 2007.
In June, eight U.S. packaging students visited Pharmintech 2007 and toured packaging machinery supplier plants in Bologna and Milan, Italy. The trip was part of the sixth-annual Italian Packaging Technology Awards (IPTA) program. The program included a writing competition in which students from 15 North American universities wrote a paper on technical innovations in the packaging industry. The eight winners were awarded a trip to Italy to visit the Italian packaging suppliers. The accompanying photo shows students during a visit to IMA on June 13.
Based in Las Vegas, Med-Health is a combination of three independent businesses where Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) technology from SAP will play a key role. Currently operating is a Med-Health business that sells medical supplies like gowns, gloves, sutures, and other "consumables." Opening this summer was a pharmaceutical drug wholesaler. And some time around January of 2008 will be the opening of a Med-Health pharmaceutical repackaging arm.
AstraZeneca recently piloted a new data collection system from Zarpac on a packaging line at its Westborough, MA, facility to collect data to identify ways to improve uptime. The results of the study were reported in a presentation March 29 at the Pharmaceutical Packaging Forum by Jeff Rosen, senior industrial engineer, Aseptic Manufacturing and Packaging for Wilmington, DE-based AstraZeneca.
Pharmaceutical companies at Interphex Puerto Rico will explore the latest options in Packaging End-of-Line Solutions (PELS) during a special luncheon at the Feb. 1-2 event in San Juan. Register by January 31 to receive free exhibit hall admission. Exhibit hall hours are 1 p.m. to 8 p.m., while conference hours are 9 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.
Need to get on the same page with your supplier(s) and consultant(s) in commissioning and qualifying packaging machinery? Try boarding the Joint Equipment Transition Team , or JETT. A small team of end users, suppliers, and consultants finalized the language and a complex diagram for a JETT equipment acquisition model that’s been in the works for more than a year during a January 18 meeting hosted by Abbott Laboratories at its Waukegan, IL, facility.
• of Lakso slat fillers and cottoners, as well as pharmaceutical line integration, engineering, and design services
• 20,000-sq-ft manufacturing facility has full machine shop capabilities, including CNC, conventional machining, and fabrication
• complete track-and-trace line includes the company’s ink-jet, laser, and outer case coding equipment, integrated with RFID systems capabilities
• demonstrated at Interphex 2006, the line showed unique EPS serial product numbers, 2D and data-matrix bar coding, from individual item level to pallet marking and tagging to final dispatch
In pharmaceutical packaging, conveyors not only function as a “highway” system to coordinate product flow between machines, they can also maximize packaging line efficiency.
Selecting and integrating the conveying system for pharmaceutical packaging environments requires careful—and early—consideration. Failure to give proper attention to the conveyor system can result in waste, excess costs, and higher cycle times. A common example: the relationship between the conveyor and the package-labeling system.
As marketing departments introduce innovative container shapes and graphics, labeler changeovers can become routine. But frequent changeovers can create waste upstream and downstream in the form of machine idle time and lost production. Using conveyors in a properly arranged buffering accumulation system ahead of the labeler allows production to continue even during brief labeler stoppages, helping to increase line output by as much as 25%.
A new induction cap sealer, tablet counter-filler, and labeler help this nonprofit organization more efficiently pack medicines for missions in more than 140 countries.
Packager: Tulsa, OK-based Blessings is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides pharmaceuticals, vitamins, and medical supplies to teams or missions that supply the drugs to clinics and hospitals in developing nations that serve indigent populations. Blessings is also involved in its own benevolent projects that provide pharmaceuticals to locations of special need and/or for disaster relief. Dr. Harold Harder, Blessings’ president, explains that about 95% of its products are solid-dose tablets or capsules, used primarily to treat various infections.
Challenges: Blessings sources drugs globally, including the purchase of pharmaceuticals in the U.S. Most of the drugs purchased internationally are bought in bulk for economic reasons. Harder estimates that Blessings repackages nearly one-third of its drugs and vitamins, primarily into bottles. The organization outsources some of its packaging, but Harder says, “We’ve really gotten more seriously into repackaging in the past year.”
• SR Mate 100iB robot is available on 55- and 110-ton Roboshot injection-molding machines
• provides precision, thin-wall medical parts and packaging
• ideal for low-ceiling buildings and clean rooms
