Packaging, supply and logistics
towards using a single machine for forming and trimming.
“PET must be held in place when formed and trimmed or shrinkage takes over,” Braney explains. “The machines used in Europe could use more polypropylene and PET, so other markets have followed suit as polystyrene has gone out of fashion.”
“The European method was fine but it needed much bigger machines to deliver more volume, as the medical side of the industry grew quicker in Europe,” he adds. “Now, you have exactly the same machines in both the US and Europe for medical devices.”
The most significant innovation, however, has been in the process used for creating the moulds from which the plastic containers derive their shape. In the early days, moulds were either cast in metal or made by hand, which gave packaging producers great flexibility in terms of the shapes they could create, but also made the process slower and more costly. Now, computer-aided design (CAD) and 3D printing are among the technologies that have redefined the mould-making process. “With the production of the tool in the first place, before you made and shaped it, but now it is often done with 3D printing, so there has been more focus on how to create new forming techniques,” Braney notes. “Rather than ordering a tool and having it cast and sent back six weeks later, now you can design and create it overnight and test and change it quickly. You can make innovative changes in just a few days.”
“People used to make a wooden tool and carve it into shape, test it, then make a tool,” he adds. “Now, with 3D printing, you can do it all in a few days. You can easily change the design and the look, which is important because everyone wants to be different and innovative. Turnaround time is much quicker, which means
Medical Device Developments /
www.nsmedicaldevices.com
thermoforming can keep pace with the innovation in medical devices.”
Forming for the future
The next big step forward is likely to be the incorporation of artificial intelligence and machine learning to advance the level of automation in tool- making, design and production. Not only could this make the production of thermoformed plastic more cost efficient, but it could also enhance quality and reduce the time needed to identify and correct errors in the production process. “Physically, the simplest method is to have an extrusion line running directly into a thermoforming machine then taking waste back to the extrusion line,” says Braney. “With automation you can now have one person running three or four machines now. Before, you needed three people on each machine – one at the start, one in the middle and one packing at the end.”
Above: The Covid-19 pandemic helped to exemplify how thermoforming was effective with medicines that need to be stored effectively.
Opposite: Much of the clear plastic packaging we see housing syringes and other common hospital equipment is created
via thermoforming.
“With the production of the tool in the fi rst place, before you made and shaped it, but now it is often done with 3D printing, so there has been more focus on how to create new forming techniques.”
“Thermoforming used to be very labour-intensive but now it is not,” he adds. “You can monitor the production flow on the computer screen and, at the manufacturing stage, the machines are connected to the internet, so any issue can be spotted early and possibly fixed centrally.” From mould design to materials, from people to processes, from cost to cleanliness, thermoforming continues to push forward as the packaging production mechanism for choice in the medical industry. ●
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