The Fitzpatrick Company recently partnered with Siemens, a global electrification, automation and digitization provider, on the development of the control system on their Contained Compaction System (CCS) which is used by the pharmaceutical industry to create granulated powders during the manufacture of Oral Solid Dosage.
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After years of success with its CCS family of roller compactors, Fitzpatrick team members wanted to update the control software and incorporate the latest automation advances to remain competitive.
The goal was to come up with a smaller, lighter machine –all managed by an easy-to-use automation system for monitoring and control, complete with reporting capabilities fully compliant with requirements mandated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States and matched by similar requirements of other national regulators. That’s when Arash Avvali, Senior Controls Engineer at IDEX MPT, tapped on Siemens Corporation.
“Siemens automation system is the most user friendly. It’s so much easier to troubleshoot. There’s way less wiring too. And the cost is lower as well,” Arash said. “Their Portal Software is also super powerful and has lots of great features. It’s so easy to work with”
A Safety Controller was put in place to anchor the solution, complemented with a Panel PC to help manage all the reporting requirements, and Comfort Panels to make operating the machines simple and intuitive, with an abundance of information made available. The whole solution was engineered to not only be extremely reliable, but also very flexible, giving the IDEX MPT team the ability to make refinements for customers tailored to their specific needs and requests.
In 2018, several customers were able to test prototypes of the product and praised the CCS for its compact size, ease of use and the ability to clean the product more regularly.
Orders from this project have boosted sales in 2019, keeping Fitzpatrick in a competitive leadership position in years to come.
The Fitzpatrick Company and Quadro Engineering Corp. are Units of IDEX Material Processing Technologies and have been trusted partners of the majority of the world’s top pharmaceutical, chemical and food ingredient processing customers. IDEX Material Process Technologies (MPT) includes four companies — Quadro, Fitzpatrick, Matcon and Microfluidics.