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Serialization for prescription mouthwash

At PACK EXPO International 2016, Xttrium Laboratories sought a comprehensive serialization solution for a new line dedicated to 16-oz PET bottles of mouthwash. Mission accomplished.

Integrated into each unwind stand of the pressure-sensitive labeler is a laser printer that receives unique serial numbers from the serialization system and prints those numbers into a 2D Data Matrix code.
Integrated into each unwind stand of the pressure-sensitive labeler is a laser printer that receives unique serial numbers from the serialization system and prints those numbers into a 2D Data Matrix code.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers in the U.S. that produce prescription drugs have until November 26 of this year to have in place serialization technology that lets them comply with the U.S. Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA). Essentially, serialization is the assigning of a unique serial number to each product item giving it a unique identity that allows it to be effectively tracked at virtually any moment and traced to its location at any stage of the supply chain.

Mindful of the November deadline, Xttrium Laboratories of Mount Prospect, IL, recently implemented a comprehensive serialization solution from Systech International on a new line for 16-oz PET bottles of prescription mouthwash. The Systech solution puts Xttrium in compliance with Levels 1 through 4 of the DSCSA. (Go to pwgo.to/3792 for a fuller description of the five-level model to which serialization systems are supposed to adhere.)

Equally impressive is the level of automation up and down the entire line, including a side-load case packer from Arpac. Arpac also supplied a robotic palletizing system featuring a software tool that generates ideal pallet patterns, thus enabling robots to palletize more variations quickly and efficiently. Stretchwrapping of pallets is also done on an Arpac machine.

According to David Maldonado, Director of Operations at Xttrium, Arpac became an integral part of this serialization solution early on. “I met with Rick Allegretti, Arpac President, at PACK EXPO 2016, and right away I liked what they had to offer,” says Maldonado. “Serialization was new to us and it was new to them, too, at the time, but they said they’d like to work with us and customize if need be to come up with what we needed.”

Close coordination between Systech and Arpac was called for in order to make sure the lighting and cameras that are so essential in a serialization solution were all properly embedded in the case packer with the best possible field of view. In addition to these more or less mechanical considerations there were electrical and data sharing connections involving the Systech PC and the case packer’s PLC that had to be addressed. Arpac’s Brian Ormanic, Lead Applications Engineer, puts it this way. “Inputs, outputs, wiring, programming, data checks, reject stations—it all has to be tied together if serialization is going to work.”

Own brands plus others
Xttrium produces own-brand products and also contract manufactures and packages for other brands. Growth in the volume of business was the primary reason behind the addition of the new line, which operates at a rate of 150 bottles/min. Production begins with an unscrambler from Kaps-All. Operators load 16-oz amber PET bottles from Pretium Packaging into the hopper and the unscrambler does the rest, depositing bottles right-side-up on a discharge conveyor.

Bottles are conveyed single-file around a turn and then enter a filler/capper block from Serac. 18 filling nozzles in a rotary configuration fill bottles by volume. The bottles pass immediately to a capper with six heads that applies a threaded closure injection molded of polypropylene.

Exiting the Serac system, the bottles pass through a pressure-sensitive labeler from Quadrel Labeling Systems that has two label unwind stands. This helps keep efficiency high because when one roll of labels runs out the other kicks in automatically. Integrated into each unwind stand is a Model D320i laser printer from Domino. The Systech serialization system sends a unique serial number to the Domino printer for the printer to encode and print the serial number into a 2D Data Matrix code, along with product identification and lot and date code information, on each label. For Xttrium-brand products, these codes are generated internally by Xttrium. For contract packaged products, the codes emanate from the customer. In either case, the Systech system expertly manages the codes, extracting them from an Enterprise Resource Planning system and sending them to the Domino printers.

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