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Filling and analyzing from the pharma to automotive industry
Let’s take a client from the pharmaceutical industry and a client from the automotive industry. The fact that they produce completely different products is irrelevant. We know that it’s the volume that counts and we know how to measure it, regardless of whether it’s an infusion bag or a car body anti-corrosion solution. With the Surface-Acoustic-Wave-Technology (SAW), we are on the same wavelength as the product that has to flow.
“No more detours to achieve optimal results.”
“No more compromises with flow rates.”
On the same wavelength
What you see is not a car body or an infusion bag. What you see is the way Bürkert handle the fluid challenges of our clients. We do not think in terms of industries, we think in terms of solutions.
“No more compromises with flow rates.”
Client Meeting
The beginning of any solution is understanding the problem: One of our long-standing clients, a global market leader in the development and manufacture of infusion solutions, invested heavily in a new production plant.
3000 ml
It wants every 3000 millilitres of its high-quality pharmaceutical product to flow automatically into the infusion bags under cleanroom conditions. But this has been made more difficult due to conventional flow meters currently available. Added to this comes special product flexibility, minimal installation space and high packing density of the complete system.
The plant runs at a high speed and fills 40 bags per minute. 57,600 litres of fluid is distributed into transparent bags within a period of eight hours.
Output per minute
The problem: To prevent rejects, the bags may not be underfilled. Our client cannot deliver underfilled bags to its end client and, instead, has to throw away the rejected goods. The bags filled with excess fluid can be sold, but then the client has to accept that with each of these overfilled bags, it is giving away its quality product. Too much overfilling can ruin the bag or make it impossible to further process and then transport them. This negatively affects the plant’s efficiency.
Its expensive plant has thus created “litres” of trouble for our client because either it has to give away the expensive fluid or, if the bags are underfilled, throw it away as a reject good.
Too much liquid in the bag
That adds up to roughly 276 litres in 8 hours
This is the equivalent of 2 full bathtubs per shift
Because it is always better to give away than to waste, the client has adjusted the average filling volume at the plant to high levels in order to mitigate the risk of rejects as much as possible. This is the lesser of two evils, but not an ideal situation. But our client has no other option, at least for now.
There are many technologies available on the market that can measure and control the flow rates. Three immediately come to mind. But none of them is the perfect solution for this particular scenario:
Flow meters:
Mechanical
Mechanical flow meters are not allowed in hygienic processing environments because moving parts in the product stream are not permitted. The risk that the product could become contaminated due to a sensor defect is too high.
Coriolis
There are several reasons why Coriolis flow meters cannot be used: 1. The specifications regarding installation space and packing density cannot be complied with. 2. By constricting the Coriolis measuring space that the product flows through (depending on the measuring principle), the flow rate rises while the flow velocity remains the same compared to the plant’s fluid handling system directly upstream from the filling point. This means flow velocities up to 12.5 m/s can develop directly at the filling point, which makes precision filling impossible and can ruin the infusion bags.
Magnetic inductive
The magnetic inductive flow meters have to be ruled out because not all media produced by our client have the necessary conductivity.
Our client must thus rely on time, or, more precisely, the time/pressure dosing: To fill the bag, a valve opens for a certain time period to allow the desired product volume to flow through it. According to the plan. However, the plant reacts very sensitively to external influences such as pressure and changes that are made in the production plant as a result of self-correcting processes in the production.
Therefore, our client combines the time/pressure measurement with a high-precision weighing system. This means that the strict specifications can be adhered to by weighing each bag. In order to avoid underfilling, the flow rate is set very high as a preventive measure, but means a lot of product is given away. Our client is therefore faced with a major fluid challenge: they need high-level precision filling at maximum filling speed.
The Bürkert Solution
With the Bürkert solution, the client can leave out the time/pressure measurement and no longer has to give away volumes of its product. Thanks to the FLOWave flow meters now installed in the plant, the filling valves no longer close when a certain time has passed, rather they close after the desired product volume has flowed through it. These flow meters function according to the patented SAW process. To get a completely accurate measurement, it is not necessary for there to be contact between the sensors and the medium. Also, there is no need for an additional pump to prevent pressure drops and the medium’s conductivity is not a factor at all. The infusion bags are now consistently filled, regardless of influences and changes that once negatively impacted the process. Just as our client wanted.
Bürkert Technology
The success of our technology can be measured: The Bürkert solution drastically reduced filling level inconsistencies. Our client now gets much better results.
Fact
The FLOWave unit is made of stainless steel, weighs only 3.2 kg and can be installed and removed quickly by one person.
Thanks to the high-precision filling, all specifications are complied with and plant efficiency has increased. Our client can fill and sell more bags in the same time period.
Have a look how Bürkert solves the problem:
“No more detours to achieve optimal results.”
Client Meeting
Our client produces German luxury cars. And is faced with a typical industry-related problem. To prevent metal from corroding before further assembly steps can be taken, it immerses the car body in a special anti-corrosion solution. This process step is long overdue for streamlining.
Car body
Fact
The solution consists primarily of water, pigments that are designed to protect car bodies from corrosion and a binding agent that bonds the pigments to the raw material. When the luxury car is lifted out of this solution, the water flows back into the basin.
To prevent sedimentation, in other words, the pigments from collecting on the bottom of the solution, the anti-corrosion solution is constantly circulated through a circulation line.
The binding agent and pigment can bond to the car body. This is precisely the purpose of the immersion bath. However, over time, it is exactly this process that has affected the result – undesirable results for our client.
Because as production progresses and the water content remains almost the same, the concentration of pigments and the binding agent in the anti-corrosion solution gradually decreases. The result: The mixing ratio is no longer correct. And at the end of a cycle, it is completely different than at the beginning.
Our client can no longer accept this. Therefore, the client measures at regular intervals the ratio of the three elements in the anti-corrosion solution. And comes repeatedly to the same unsatisfactory result.
The industry’s only solution thus far is to have samples taken at routine intervals during ongoing production and have them analysed in the lab. The results are reported and the mixing ratio is then adjusted accordingly.
This process is extremely arduous and time-consuming. Consequently, the client keeps the intervals between the time-consuming measurements, which are average at best, as long as possible. The client must therefore make do with the fluctuations in the mixing ratio.
Our automobile manufacturer wanted to find a way to measure the mixing ratio of the anti-corrosion solution, preferably during ongoing production, without having to detour to the lab. This would allow the client to ensure that every car body comes out of the production cycle with the identical anti-corrosion pigmenting. This is where we come into the picture.
The Bürkert Solution
Our solution allows for seamless control: We have equipped their system with the advanced SAW technology. Our FLOWave flow meter constantly reports to our client which elements are missing in the anti-corrosion solution and by how much without having to detour to the lab. Because it has now been incorporated into the process. It’s just a lot smaller.
With the Bürkert technology, the mixing ratio is not only correct at the beginning of a production cycle, the result remains consistent throughout. Always optimal.
Benefit
The extremely time-consuming measurements at regular intervals are now a thing of the past.
No lab
The time and effort to make a detour to the lab is no longer necessary because our SAW sensors have replaced it.
