Medical manufacturing: innovative feeding system for highly sensitive glass carpules

Published on Jan 30, 2025

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How precise handling ensures product quality

Automated processing has a high priority in the pharmaceutical industry: the focus is on efficient production processes, high quality and precise handling. PIA Automation has now implemented an innovative solution for the fully automated handling of sensitive glass cartridges. Such cartridges - often filled with frozen active ingredients - are used in outpatient emergency medicine, for example.

The infeed system from PIA consists of a palletizer, exchangeable grippers adapted to the cartridges and a feed screw unit. The trays with the cartridges are provided manually by the customer's employees. A gripper then removes the glass containers from the trays and transfers them to the screw conveyor unit. This transports the delicate workpieces safely and precisely to a washing system. 

Speed, precision and efficiency in a sterile environment

PIA designed the palletizer with lifting tables to suit the customer's application. The pallets, trays and components are inserted manually into a module. The high mix of product types warranted custom 3D printed grippers for each application: The system can use them to place more than 20 glass containers into the screw feeder of the washing system in a synchronized manner per gripping process. The vacuum suction cups of the gripping system are made of an FDA-certified material. They grip the glass carpules securely, sensitively and without damaging them.

Flexibility through variant changes

In total, the PIA system can process up to ten different glass container variants and sizes. The gripper is changed over to a new variant fully automatically: the robot moves to a station - christened the “fir tree” by the PIA engineers due to the appearance of the rack of grippers - and automatically switches to the appropriate gripper depending on the type of cartridges. The cell is therefore not only innovative, but also extremely flexible to use.

 

Partnership for joint success

To ensure a smooth connection of the screw conveyor to the washing system, PIA coordinated all interfaces precisely with the washing system manufacturer. In general, the successful commissioning of the medical system shows how innovative technologies and close cooperation between the project partners can result in efficient solutions. The main challenges in this project were the tight time frame for the installation and the high number of cycles required in a very small space - both of which the stakeholders achieved together. The customers' satisfaction with the successful implementation was evident immediately after the project was completed: the next order has already been placed.

Project Managerin

Meike Lemberger

“The successful implementation of the infeed system for glass carpules was a milestone for our team. The individual solution without a standard palletizer, the close cooperation with the washing system manufacturer and the flexible 3D-printed robot grippers have shown how creative and flexible we are at PIA. True to our motto: „creating efficiency”.