Biomune is a leader in the vaccine manufacturing industry for the animal health industry in the United States. The company, headquartered in Lenexa, Kansas, produces more than 50 products that have production licenses from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and serves customers in 37 countries.
In June 2005, Biomune installed an integrated packaging line to produce small vials ranging from 5 to 20 cc, including the UT 36 Rotary Automatic Stacker, VR2S-10 on-line filling from Cozzoli Machine. / Garcell integrated machine and a BT 15 double head automatic pallet loader. This production line is installed in a 100-class standard clean room. “When we consider purchasing a production line, Cozzoli is not the top or the lowest supplier on our list,†said Production Director Bill Krehbiel. “We looked at a lot of other equipment, but we already have We had three Cozzoli equipment and had extensive experience in operating the equipment, so we decided to stick with Cozzoli equipment.â€
The vials in the trays, sterilized by hot air, are sent to the production line where a worker manually pushes them onto the rotary stacker. The stacking platform sends the vials individually to a conveyor belt, which in turn delivers the bottles to the filling/gathering machine. At the end near the conveyor belt of this all-in-one, there is a tiny plastic protrusion that can remove any head-down vial from the conveyor belt into the box.
At the entrance to the intermittently moving equipment, the vial enters the feed screw mounted on one side of the conveyor belt. The screw extends into the filling area of ​​the device and separates and controls the vial for filling. The filling machine can fill 10 bottles at a time. During the filling process, the feed screw will stop advancing, and the feed screw will hold the vials until the filling occurs. The nozzle drops and starts filling from the bottom of the bottle. When the liquid is dispensed, the nozzle rises to prevent any spillage and bubbles. The feed screw begins to remove the filled vial and then sends another batch of vials under the nozzle. Each nozzle is driven by a special positive-displacement piston pump, and its suck back feature prevents drug drip. The amount of filling and suck-back can be manually adjusted to optimize the filling accuracy while the required filling error is 0.5%.
The movement of the feed screw ends at the discharge unit of the filler, and the vials enter the star wheel that can transport them to the underside of the stopper wheel. The stopper drops from the upper hopper along the guide rails into the stopper wheel. Rotate the stopper wheel to pick up the cork and rotate it in synchronism with the star wheel to attach the stopper to the bottle. This device can be retrofitted with a lyophilized plug with a slot in between, and only a part of the stopper can be stuffed into the bottle, whereas a typical stopper needs to be stuffed into the bottle.
The filling/pasting machine cooperates with the upstream sensor to ensure that there are enough vials on the conveyor belt for filling, while the downstream sensors are responsible for detecting unstuffed bottles. The device is controlled by Rockwell Automation's Allen-Bradley programmable controller and can hold recipes for all products on the production line.
After leaving the stopper, the vials continued on the conveyor belt. The conveyor belt turned a 90-degree bend and sent them to the BT15 double-headed tray machine. A feed system sends the containers directly to the pallet loader, and rows of vials are pushed into the three-sided tray. This device also installed a counter to count the vials that were pushed onto the tray, and when the first tray was full, the vials could be transferred to AB PLC adjacent to the tray. Manually replace the filled tray with an empty tray and repeat the process continuously.
“Cozzoli's equipment is of good quality, installation and operation are relatively simple, and since most adjustments do not require tools, they are installed at the latest,†said Krehbiel. “Cozzoli also has a very good service department. So if we need services, they will come and help us immediately."
Source: Packaging Expo
