Improved spray arm design and advanced nozzle systems cut set-up time in half on state-of-the-art tablet coaters. This has big advantages for contract manufacturers who have to find efficient ways of dealing with frequent changeover.
Time is money, and machines only make money when they are producing goods. This is particularly true in the highly competitive contract manufacturing business, where producers have to deal with frequent product changeover. Many manufacturers have learned the hard way that time spent on product changeover and equipment cleaning can be a real drain on the efficiency of tablet production operations. Automation does not entirely eliminate the need for manual intervention in pharmaceutical production.
Nozzle system positioning, maintenance and cleaning are still performed by hand. Anyone who has ever cleaned a spray arm in the coating drum of an older generation production system knows how much manual labour is involved. Users need a lot of manual dexterity to manipulate the labyrinth of fittings and tubes and the long arm, and work does not always go as smoothly as planned. A few years ago Düsen-Schlick developed a spray arm that alleviates the problem and that has set a new standard in efficient design.
“A lot of coating drum manufacturers design our professional coating arm into their machines,” said Düsen-Schlick sales manager Udo Prell. More than sixty customers have upgraded their coaters because the advantages are so obvious. The Schlick development team designed the PCA specifically for coating applications.