OnLine challenges traditional practice
In a move to improve the quality of information available in the production environment, inspection equipment specialist Loma Systems has launched a data management software package to process information from its range of checkweighers.
The Windows-based system will benefit companies with multiple checkweighers, as it amalgamates weight and overfill data, presenting it centrally in a format that can be easily understood.
Loma OnLine product manager Alan Johnson commented: 'With increasing pressure on margins, manufacturers cannot afford to give product away. Loma OnLine allows end-users to quantify the overfill problem so that they can fine-tune their production processes and improve competitive edge.'
Johnson continued: 'Loma OnLine is a data capture facility that can be installed on any of our current range of checkweighers. The package itself doesn't make the checkweighers any more complex, so no additional training is required for operatives.'
The checkweighers need be networked by LomaNet hardware, with which the software package is then interfaced so that the data can be processed, centralised and networked. Data on each product is represented graphically or in tabular format. If, for example, the same product is running on three checkweighers, the system will collate the data and generate single product totals. It automatically recognises a product change and presents overfill data in terms of weight, cost and percentage. Information can be singled out and filtered according to product, line or timeframe.
Johnson concluded: 'This development has placed the checkweigher at the centre of the production environment, making it a critical control point and a source of information which can help improve the company's bottom line. Loma OnLine has enabled checkweighing to progress from a legislative control to a management tool.'
First Flexicon filler
A new liquid filling and cap tightening machine from Danish company Flexicon has been supplied to Biotrace International by Flexicon's UK distributor, Maidstone-based PAK Machinery. The Model FF30 is the first to be installed in the UK, and comprises a rotary table bottle feed unit, an automatic peristaltic liquid dispensing head with diving nozzle, and screw or crimp capping head. Filled and capped bottles are then collated on a tray.
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High speed dispensing for solid phase synthesis
Manually filling reactors with starting resins, distribution of resins for libraries and dosage of scavengers for purification are time-consuming, tedious jobs. Errors are also more likely to occur with manual distribution.
With the design of Redi, Zinsser Analytic and Argonaut Technologies have developed a novel solution. Redi is an X,Y,Z distribution system, which can handle any resin, in quantities from 1.5mg (±3%) to 500mg (±2%).
It dispenses volumes using calibrated tips, which are adjustable manually or automatically. The tip takes up the resin under vacuum out of a reservoir, which can be positioned in a special shaker to maintain the uniform particle size distribution, moves to the destination position and releases the material with a soft blow in the receiving reactor or container. The system can distribute fixed quantities or variable quantities of any number of resins. Cross-contamination is avoided by a unique cleaning method or automatically exchangeable tips (PickFix). The Redi systems are available with up to four independently spacing tips, allowing as many as 1,400 distributions per hour. Redi systems are successfully used in synthesis laboratories throughout the world to fill any type of reactor system.
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