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Apace Accelerates Track-and-Trace Operations

New solid-dose bottling line increases capacity, reduces labor costs and achieves Level 4 serialization and Level 3 aggregation.

Apace installed this integrated bottling line from NJM Packaging in 2017 to increase production volume.
Apace installed this integrated bottling line from NJM Packaging in 2017 to increase production volume.

As a contract packer of solid dose pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals, Apace Packaging LLC goes to great lengths to exceed their customers’ expectations.

For years, Apace has kept “a watchful eye on [the] horizon as regulations evolve,” says the company’s website. “Apace is one of the only contract packagers to provide a fully aggregated serialization solution—on each of its packaging lines.”

Strict standards and innovative ideas help the company fulfill their mission to provide serialized and aggregated packaging that is both high quality and cost effective. To increase production capacity, they turned to NJM Packaging and installed a high-speed integrated bottling line in 2017.

“This new bottling line is critical for the growth of our company,” says Patrick Ferguson, General Manager at Apace. “It was important that the line be as versatile as possible to maximize its potential. Our goal was to think of virtually any bottling scenario that a customer might bring to us, so we could always respond ‘yes’ to their request.”

“This packaging line has been a dream come true,” states Wendell Bell, the company’s Director of Operations. “We first learned of NJM in 2009 when we walked into their booth at PACK EXPO. It was immediately obvious that the design and engineering of their equipment are top notch. From that day on, we decided to go to them whenever we needed new machinery. We appreciate that NJM not only manufactures their own equipment, they represent other great suppliers and offer integration services. This enabled us to get single-source responsibility and a cohesive solution that has a lot of production flexibility.”

Apace’s new line features a CFI-622*8 tablet counter, beltorque® capper, AUTOCOLT IV labeler and more. Built for extreme versatility, it can be setup to run round, square or rectangular bottles, in sizes from 40 to 1,500 cc, with either CT or CR caps with an induction sealing option. Canister or pouch desiccants can be added as well as cotton, rayon or polyester filler. The labeler applies three-panels to square and rectangular bottles or wraparound labels to round bottles with the option of sideserts and topserts. Flexibility has been designed into the bottle labeling too, as variable data, including serialized information, is added to the label via either a thermal-transfer printer or a laser ablation printer, both of which are installed on the high-speed labeler. Finally, the line either aggregates serialized bottles into bundles and bundles into cases or loose bottles into cases via a case packer.

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