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Vial packing extraordinaire

Bio-Rad Laboratories boosted its vial filling/capping/labeling capacity with all new equipment. Highlights include a twin-head labeler and a custom-built tray loader.

Bio-Rad's new labeler handles pressure-sensitive paper or BOPP labels.
Bio-Rad's new labeler handles pressure-sensitive paper or BOPP labels.

Wherever a patient’s blood or urine sample is being tested, diagnostic controls play a key role. They’re sent through the same analyzing system that the patient sample goes through to help verify the quality and accuracy of the analysis.

At Bio-Rad Laboratories in Irvine, CA, diagnostic controls are filled into glass vials and then stoppered, capped, labeled, and tray packed. In August, a new cap, label, and tray-loading line went into production capable of 550 vials/min.

“Demand for our product was rising,” says Lindy Vejar, project leader at Bio-Rad. “At the same time, our existing equipment was starting to show its age. It was time for a new line.”

At this time, Bio-Rad is preparing for the installation of a new filling/stoppering machine (see sidebar) scheduled for a May 2004 startup. For now, Bio-Rad continues to operate the two filling machines it has had for some time, feeding their combined output through the new cap/label/tray-load equipment.

Vials come in two sizes: 5 mL and 10 mL. But fill volumes can be adjusted in just about any increment that a Bio-Rad customer wants. Made in France, the vials are from Saint-Gobain.

Once filled and stoppered, the glass vials are either freeze-dried prior to secondary packaging or sent directly to secondary packaging with the vial contents still in a liquid state. Either way, the vials encounter a Bi-Flo® accumulation table from Garvey Corp. It receives vials in one of two ways. If the vials have gone through freeze drying, the operators bring trays of vials on carts to the Garvey Bi-Flo infeed system. An operator gently pushes the vials out of the trays and onto the Bi-Flo system. When vials don’t go through freeze drying, they’re conveyed from the filler directly onto the Bi-Flo table.

Heading for the capper

In either case, the vials are merely passing through the Bi-Flo table, headed for a Model CAS-16/480 Fowler/Zalkin capper from Fowler Products. It applies a 20-mm threaded closure that’s injection-molded of polypropylene.

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