tabletting

AS APPEARED IN September 2016 Tablets & Capsules Copyright CSC Publishing WWW.TABLETSCAPSULES.COM

Highly evolved: Today’s tablet presses Matt Bundenthal

optimize efficiency in changeover, Fette Compacting
America
operation, and maintenance

In a highly competitive market place, tablet presses had to evolve

to meet the changing needs of pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Today’s top machines accelerate changeover, run faster, and sim-
plify maintenance. This article highlights some of the most
N ot long ago, people treated tablet compression as an
“art,” and some veterans of pharmaceutical manufacturing
may recall press operators who had a knack for making
good tablets by “feel” or some sixth sense. It seemed like
they could make tablets from fairy dust if you could get it
important features and options. on the press. But that’s not how it is anymore. Today,
tablet compression is high-tech, and productivity is
higher than ever, even when run by operators without a
lifetime of experience or a magic touch.
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As times have changed, so have many of the variables

that contribute to successful tablet compression.
Pharmaceutical and nutraceutical preparations have
improved and in many cases their potency has risen sig-
nificantly. That fact, coupled with a regulatory climate
that has—by necessity—become more stringent, have
made any form of guesswork or operational “feel” out of
place. The standard now: Precise, efficient manufacturing
at high speed.
Tablet press manufacturers have responded to the need
for more speed and better efficiency with a variety of new
Swapping fully tooled turrets reduces downtime because
technicians don’t have to set up the punches and dies at the
features and upgraded processes. They center around

machine.
three areas: changeover, operation, and maintenance.

Changeover
The importance of being able to thoroughly clean a
tablet press after a campaign and quickly prepare it to run of changeovers—is a good example. That job can be made
another cannot be overstated. Today’s most advanced much faster and easier by eliminating individual dies in
tablet presses are recipe-driven, meaning that once the
favor of robust segments that have the product cavities
parameters for successfully compressing a particular
machined into them.
tablet are in the control system, operators don’t have to
re-enter data the next time they run that product. The Operation
result is a streamlined process with better product yield Assuming a powder or granulation flows well enough to
and less waste. reach the material hopper of a tablet press, the next sub-
Many manufacturers are opting to use “quick-change” assembly it encounters is the feeder. It’s difficult to overstate
kits, which assemble all the product-contact components the importance of the force feeder to the operation of a
used by the press during a campaign. These typically modern press. It’s the critical component for moving the
include items that are quick to remove and install, such as product from the hopper and into the die cavities in the
the product hopper, feeder, scrapers, take-off assembly, correct amount, often at high speed. That’s why the top
and re-circulation components. Quick-change kits allow tablet press manufacturers offer not only operational
operators to switch rapidly between products. They also improvements to feeders, but also enable you to adjust
allow you to clean the product-contact components from them much more easily than before.
the previous campaign offline and prepare them for use in Another improvement pertains to monitoring the rela-
another quick-change kit. tive standard deviation (RSD) of compression force as the
Removable turret assemblies are a big part of reducing tablet press operates. RSD correlates strongly with how
changeover times, because they eliminate the most labor- consistently die cavities are filled. If the RSD is erratic, or
intensive part of any changeover: Cleaning and setting up high—i.e., in excess of around 3.5 to 4 percent—then the
the punches and dies at each individual station. With a operator must adjust the feeder speed in order to stabilize
second turret cleaned, tooled, and ready for action, you or even improve the process. Today, that adjustment is sim-
can quickly and simply remove the dirty turret, clean the ple because most modern presses use feeders with drives
interior of the press, and start manufacturing. It makes a that are independent of the machine’s main motor. In fact,
huge difference in how quickly companies can get their many presses enable you to change the rotational direction
presses back into service for a new campaign. of the feeder paddles and/or change the paddles them-
Everyone using a tablet press should stay in touch with selves. Different paddle configurations, i.e., flat-faced
their preferred vendors to learn what new features are spokes versus cylindrical ones, can have very different
available and whether they come only with a new press effects on different products.
model or can be retrofit. Tablet press suppliers often It is also critical for operators to understand that when it
improve the components on existing models and those comes to compression force, it’s possible to apply too much
improvements can have a big impact on your operation. when seeking to hit the target tablet characteristics. It’s
Examples include components that optimize how the understandable that operators would opt to apply more
feeder operates and adjusts, paddle wheels of different than enough force because many new presses can produce
shapes and styles, and seals that contain dust better and very high forces. But the maximum force the press can gen-
thus increase yields and reduce the time needed to pre- erate is rarely, if ever, needed to achieve the target tablet
pare the press for a new campaign. hardness. In fact, applying too much force is counterpro-
Some tablet press options have revolutionized the con- ductive: Instead of making better tablets, you’ll damage the
cept of changeover. The tedious task of removing and rein- particles you’re compressing, which could lead to softer, not
stalling the tooling—the single-most time-consuming part harder, tablets.
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Maintenance
Once your company has made a substantial invest-
ment in a state-of-the-art, high-speed modern tablet
press, the next step is keeping it in tip-top shape. No
piece of equipment can be run hard day in, day out with-
out being maintained. While today’s presses perform bet-
ter than ever, they’re still a mix of high precision and
tank-like strength that requires regular preventive mainte-
nance.
The term preventive maintenance is used so often, that
people can forget what it’s all about: reducing the need
for regular maintenance. The point is to pay close atten-

Modern feeders operate independent of the tablet press’ main

tion to the press so that unplanned events—and

motor, giving operators more control, including the ability to

unplanned downtime—are kept to a minimum. And

change the rotational direction of the feeder paddles and to use a

while it’s important to maintain the entire press, it makes

variety of paddle configurations.

sense to pay very close attention to everything within the
compression zone, the site of the most important actions.
Check the punch seals and scrapers regularly, and
when you need to remove and install punch seals, use the
In many cases, in fact, it’s not how hard you can com- tools recommended by the tablet press manufacturer or
press a product that results in sufficient tablet hardness, supplier. Seals on the underside of the feeder, especially
but how long the product is compressed at peak force, those enclosing the fill channel, warrant extra attention.
which is known as dwell time. This can be fine-tuned by A good rule of thumb is to assume that any moving part
selecting punches with the appropriate head flat. The in the compression zone—but especially those above or
length of this surface at the top of the punch determines near the die cavities—must be monitored closely. The
how long the product remains under compression. To objective is to ensure that only the intended product can
prolong dwell time, some tooling vendors offer punches make it into the cavities, nothing else.
with extended head flats. These longer flats can also pro- Some manufacturers offer upper punches that accept
duce incidental advantages, including less wear to com- bellows seals, which are accordion-like and completely
enclose the space between the bottom of the upper
pression rolls and ejection cams.
punch barrel (near the tip) and the bottom of the upper
While not strictly related to tablet press performance,
punch section of the turret. These seals greatly reduce
the amount of floor space today’s equipment requires is
the possibility that contaminants—which usually appear
smaller than ever. That means better efficiency in the use
as dark specks on the tablet—can reach the die cavities.
of GMP space, which is at an all-time premium. Today, The risk of such contamination tends to increase with the
relatively small presses are easy to install in tight confines speed of the tablet press and its run time, especially if the
and can produce tablets at a rate formerly possible only lubrication settings aren’t maintained as the press manu-
using much larger machines. Anybody involved with facturer recommends.
planning a manufacturing facility should take notice. Modern presses owe their phenomenal precision at high
Another operational improvement concerns bi-layer speed to many different electronic components, which
tablets. If any aspect of tabletting resembles an art, this is must be checked and maintained regularly, just like the
it. Operators must not only maintain target tablet specifi-
cations as the press operates at high speed, but they must
prevent poor bonds between layers, cross-contamination
between the two products, and poor yields. To make the
job easier, new presses allow you to rapidly and accurately
sample the first layer without allowing partial tablets to
reach the discharge chute for acceptable tablets. New
presses also control the weight of each layer of the tablet,
not just the overall weight. They do this by using the
punch penetration of the first layer as a means to trigger
compression force control. Furthermore, the additional
compression stations that the presses use to make bi-layers
can be used either to lightly compress (tamp) the first
layer of a bi-layer or serve as an additional pre-compres- This double-sided press enables you to sample the first layer of a
sion station for mono-layer tablets. It’s a way to increase bi-layer tablet.
dwell time without using special punches.
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mechanical parts. How well the electronics operate will

largely dictate how quickly a press can run and still attain
the target tablet specifications and how accurately it can
reject out-of-specification tablets. Some of the most
advanced presses have user interfaces that provide real-time
data specific to things like amplifier settings and status
lamps, which allow you to calibrate from the terminal itself.
Cams are another component critical to effective press
operation, and some, such as fill cams, are directly related
to how precisely and accurately the press achieves the tar-
get results. Regular inspection is the key, and it’s simple:
Visually inspect the cam for excessive wear. Some press
manufacturers offer tools that measure the rate of wear.
The FE 35 tablet press accepts as many as 51 stations and can
Furthermore, some presses also use binary-code button
produce about 370,000 tablets per hour. Its turret can be removed
arrays and/or RFID chips that enable you to make specific
components, such as fill cams and take-off assemblies, part in just 15 minutes, and the upper and lower compression rollers
of the product recipe, thereby facilitating repeatability in can adjust automatically.
setup and operation.
The compression rolls also require preventive mainte-
nance. If a roll fails or is in poor condition, it cannot per-
form what is the single-most important function of a tablet
press: compression. Look at the surface of the compression
rolls for any sign of irregularity or damage. It takes just one
bit of metal transferred from the roll surface to a punch
head to start a vicious cycle that will destroy both quickly.
With older presses, maintenance technicians dreaded the
day a roll had to be changed, but today’s compression roll
carriers enable you to change a roll in 30 minutes or less.

Training is the glue

Improvement in any one of the three areas discussed
above—changeover, operation, and maintenance—will
improve productivity, but the goal is to optimize all three
Computer-based training modules enable operators to train at
simultaneously. That requires good, consistent, and com-
their own facilities and master factory-approved methods for
prehensive training, ideally by the tablet press manufac-
changeover, operation, and maintenance.
turer, who trains—and re-trains—its own people on using
factory methods. After training by the manufacturer’s spe-
cialists, you and your colleagues should be able to:
• Create product recipes quickly Evolution by necessity
• Harness the powerful capabilities of the user interface Tablet presses have historically represented one of the
• Implement a force-based RSD and use it to indicate most significant equipment-based investments any pharma-
die-fill consistency ceutical or dietary supplement manufacturer will make. It’s
• Understand feeder options and how to use them, no surprise then that they expect the presses to run faster,
including how to correlate feeders to weight control with greater precision and versatility and for longer periods
and how feeder speed relates to die filling of time. Tablet press makers have responded by offering
• Determine how best to compress challenging products, high-speed, modular, and robust equipment. In a highly
such as multi-layer tablets and those that need a long competitive market like that for tablet presses, evolution
dwell time never ends and changes can be sudden and dramatic. The
• Calibrate and maintain all devices related to regulating challenge is to ensure that the people who operate and
fill depth maintain the presses do those jobs as efficiently as possible.
• Develop effective, comprehensive standard operating T&C
procedures for such tasks as machine use, cleaning, and
turret removal/installation
• Implement thorough preventive maintenance Matt Bundenthal is direct sales and communications manager for
procedures Fette Compacting America, 400 Forge Way, Rockaway, NJ
• Optimize the use and inspection of tooling and foster 07866. Tel. 973 586 8722. Website: www.fetteamerica.com.
an understanding of how best to use new tool designs.