Filling and capping machine ups manufacturing capabilities
capping line specifically designed to focus on the issues of
flexibility, precision and cleanliness in cosmetic and
pharmaceutical production.
Available from Australia-based Walls Machinery on a world-wide basis, Cronos is a combination of two Serac machines - the Hera linear filling machine and the Gaia multi-station capping machine linked with a closed-loop conveyor system.
According to Serac, this combination helps meet the specific needs and expectations of the cosmetics markets. Because the sector is fast-moving, product changes are frequent, which means that production flexibility is a necessity, but likewise, the issues of precision and cleanliness are crucial to insure production quality and safety.
The machine's flexible design approach means that it can process a wide variety of containers, caps, pots and bottles ranging from 50mm to 350mm in height and 5mm to 100mm in diameter and the containers may be transferred in fixed or adjustable dishes.
Likewise, five capping stations enable the combination of all types of capping systems: screw caps, click-on caps, directed, pump, fretting, lid, spray and reducers.
Addressing the issue of frequent product changes, additions and rejigs, the machine is modular, meaning it can be used with only one capping station to begin with and then other stations may be added later.
To ensure cleanliness and thus production quality, the filling cylinders on the machine can be opened, washed and sterilised without removal. They function totally independent of one another, which eliminates the risk of overfill and each cylinder may fill a different product, thus enabling the processing of multi-layer products.
Further flexibility has been built into the design to give the machine specific settings for product/package pairing. This means that specific requirements are memorised, which the company says helps to accelerate production change-over.
The procedure for this is simple. The new product to be filled is simply selected on the touch screen and the new filling parameters are entered automatically. The filling stations are linked by the same simple drive mechanism that improves machine synchronisation, precision and efficiency.
In turn the bottom filling technology uses a servomotor, which enables 'intelligent filling' as the machine adapts the filling speed to the type of container used, the company claims.
