Medical Device Link.

Pharmaceutical and Medical Packaging News Magazine
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Originally Published March 1998

CASE HISTORY

Collectors Leave Packaging Problems in the Dust

There's an enemy on packaging lines across the industry. It's small, yet threatens worker safety, increases equipment maintenance costs, and degrades product appearance and packaging. Rexall-Sundown's (Boca Raton, FL) pill and vitamin manufacturing plant faced it head-on—and won. The enemy? Equipment-generated dust.

For months, Rexall-Sundown's packaging equipment generated excessive amounts of dust throughout the factory. Dust settled on workers' clothes and worked its way into the ventilation system. When pill bottles reached the end of the line, each one had to be individually dusted. Worst of all, Rexall-Sundown began to experience cross contamination, a problem that occurs when dust from one type of pill lands on another.

The dust originated in the pill-handling equipment on the packaging lines. During bottle filling, the pills are fed into bulk hoppers. Moving by vibration, the pills travel through slat counters and drop into funnels, which guide them into the bottles. This vibrating movement rattled the pills and rubbed them against each other, generating dust. With several separate packaging lines running at once, it didn't take long for the dust to become unmanageable.

Rexall-Sundown had equipment in place to deal with the problem. But the system—a centralized ambient-dust collector—was taxed beyond its capacity. Roy Bizjack, Rexall-Sundown's director of engineering, says that initially the system was sufficient. "But as production skyrocketed and lines were added, the system's capacity was never upgraded to keep pace," he says.

Bizjack and his colleagues knew the dust-collecting system would have to be improved; the question was not only how to upgrade it, but when. They got their chance when Rexall-Sundown made plans to move to a larger facility. "Designing a new facility gave us the perfect opportunity to solve our dust-collection problem once and for all," Bizjack says. "All we needed was a partner to help ensure we [would leave] that problem behind."

Rexall-Sundown turned to Torit Products, a division of Donaldson Company, Inc. (Minneapolis). Torit had designed Rexall-Sundown's original dust collector, and although Rexall-Sundown had outgrown that system, Bizjack and his team trusted Torit. "We knew from previous experience that we could depend on Torit's products and services," he says, "so we brought them in early on as a consultant while we were designing our new facility."

After evaluating their needs, Torit recommended that Rexall-Sundown install a decentralized system using Torit Downflo dust collectors. One dust collector would be placed on each of Rexall-Sundown's 12 packaging lines.

Bizjack and his team were wary of decentralization. "We were concerned about how much floor space [the systems] would take up, and the amount of noise and heat [they] would generate," he says. But when they viewed similar Torit units working elsewhere, Bizjack and his team found they had nothing to worry about. "We realized that the units occupy a minimal amount of space," he says. "And heat and noise were simply not an issue."

Torit and Rexall-Sundown installed Torit's new Downflo units, which are a combination of SDF-4 and SD-6 models (rated at 1200 and 1800 cfm, respectively). The units included Torit's FibraWeb washable filters, which are 99.99% effective on particles 0.5 µm and larger. HEPA filters, 99.97% effective on particles 0.3 µm and larger, were used to ensure superior filtration while the FibraWeb filters rose to peak efficiency.

"I had a hard time believing that simply attacking the dust at the point of generation would make a dramatic difference," Bizjack says. "I thought that a lot of dust would get airborne anyway." He was surprised to see how effective Torit's decentralized units are. Once the units were put into place, Bizjack and his team reported that the dust disappeared. Rexall-Sundown experienced enhanced product quality, increased productivity, and a reduced labor cost.