For pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmetics, and personal care applications, MG America, the U.S. subsidiary of MG2 of Italy, showcased its new Cariba C221 intermittent motion cartoner to the North American market at PACK EXPO International (Booth W-15003).
The unit features picking-arm enabled positive carton forming and is available either with a manual feeding station or a variety of automatic product feeders. As MG America’s Michele Leonardi explained, this system was designed with pharmaceuticals in mind, with smooth motion, low vibration, and a balcony-style design that ensures easy cleaning and maintenance, as well as separation between electrical and mechanical sections. Its lowered carton magazine, full servo assisted motions, controlled adjustable transportation, and coated guides combine to eliminate marking on components.
“The Cariba C221 features a feeding system based on a twist-and-push motion that transfers bottles. The main advantage of this type of feeding system is that changeover is very fast and simple based on replacing the twist when the bottle diameter changes,” said Leonardi. In a manual or automatic feeding configuration, the Cariba C221 is compatible with a broad range of common primary packaging formats, including blister packs, round/shaped glass and plastic bottles, jars, soft tubes, flow packs, sachets, and stick packs.
The genesis for the machine was market demand for an intermittent motion cartoner that covers between 80/85 to 110 cartons/min. Companies seeking speeds faster than that tend to move into continuous motion cartoners that are more costly and require a larger footprint. “The Cariba C221 is not just for midsize companies. Large pharmaceutical companies also need these speeds for certain products—for example eye drops or prescription nasal sprays that aren’t high volume—and they may have a dedicated line at around the 120 cartons/min mark,” he said. "The carton transportation features lower and upper belts, and the machine is very quiet with minimal vibrations while achieving those speeds."
The company reports that tuck-in and hot-melt closures are available, with a combination of the two providing tamper evidence. Printing options include emboss, inkjet and laser coding, and the unit comes equipped with integrated barcode-reading capabilities.
The Cariba C221 can be customized with a variety of additional features, including extended carton magazines, pre-folded leaflets and booklet dispensers, leaflet folding units (GUK), serialization-ready external modules, and remote connectivity.
