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FEATURE MACHINE BUILDING, FRAMEWORKS & SAFETY
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A MODULAR SOLUTION FOR RAPID PRODUCTION LINE DEVELOPMENT
Facing a complex requirement profile for its liquid bottling,
contract manufacturer Müggenburg Pharma specified Flexicon peristaltic filling and capping systems from Watson-Marlow Fluid
Technology Solutions (WMFTS). This resulted in the fast development of a production lined tailored to its requirements
V
aluable food supplements made from plant-based raw materials are often produced according to stringent
specifications, similar to medicinal products. To help, Müggenburg Pharma provides pharmaceutical, food and cosmetic companies with expertise in the commercial processing of natural highly controlled raw materials – from initial idea and recipe development, through to the control of raw and end product. Its goal is to offer its customers the shortest possible lead time and time-to-market. Recently, a customer contacted the company with an idea for a new and innovative supplement. As the raw materials are very valuable,
precise dosing is essential for consistent product quality so, to ensure maximum purity, the basic ingredients must be produced, extracted and processed as gently as possible. Furthermore, as new food supplement products are often taken in small quantities, they are filled in small glass bottles which must be securely capped with pipette caps. All these requirements must be met within the quick production times promised to customers. For this, the company needed a flexible filling
and capping line with multiple, individually controlled, dosing points. So it turned to Flexicon.
MODULARITY A wide range of peristaltic filling and capping systems are offered by Flexicon, from stand- alone units for manual filling, through to semi and fully automated filling systems. These are designed to be highly flexible and versatile. Flexicon peristaltic systems offer rapid changeover between products, batches or
The company needed a flexible filling and capping line with multiple, individually controlled, dosing points
Feature
formats. Being of modular design, the company’s filling systems can be easily combined into complex processing lines and customised to specific fill/finish needs like multiple dosing points. “Flexicon’s products can be used in any
application where high-quality, valuable liquids need to be filled safely, without contamination, and with maximum precision in small and medium-sized batches,” said Denis Cwiklinski, biopharm sales engineer at WMFTS. Having considered Müggenburg Pharma’s
requirements, Cwiklinski recommended a filling solution that combined two different Flexicon semi-automated systems into one filling line.
A NEW LINE To meet the demands, a new filling and capping line was developed. With this, the bottles are loaded on to the turntable of a Flexfeed 15 semi- automatic container feeding system which positions them accurately for the filling of the first liquid component by a PF7 dispenser. The part- filled bottles are then ejected on to the larger Flexfeed 30 container feeding and cap tightening system. This presents them to a second PF7 for dispensing the second liquid component and subsequent tightening of caps that are placed by hand. The proportion of first and second fills varies greatly and must be dispensed
14 DESIGN SOLUTIONS JULY/AUGUST 2023
within a hundredth of a millilitre. The capping head tightens pipette caps or customised caps with a constant torque to reliably prevent leaks or spillage. Finally, the bottles are collected in a discharge tray. Of additional benefit, expensive product
loss due to shearing forces or temperature deviations is minimised by the gentle and reliable delivery of the PF7. The hygienic design, flexibility of components and simple calibration procedures allow rapid cleaning and batch changes. This flexibility means other bottle and cap sizes can be processed in the future with very few changes, allowing fast and flexible adaptation to customer requirements. After only three months for process
development, validation and qualification, Müggenburg Pharma started production on the new processing line. It is currently processing around 500 bottles per hour, which is a significant increase from previous rates. In fact up to 5000 bottles are now being
filled per day, consistently and reliably, with minimal product loss. Sampling in line with GMP-regulations by an independent third party has confirmed a filling precision of significantly better than 0.5%. In addition, calibration proved to be easy and reliable with usually the third bottle of a batch fulfilling the specified parameters. The success of this project means the
company is already planning on introducing a second filling line to increase capacity.
Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions (WMFTS)
www.wmftg.com/en
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