CSL noses ahead with new contract

Following previous experience of working with Conveyor Systems Ltd (CSL), which supplied inspection and packing lines for eye droplet ampoules in a cleanroom environment, a major multinational pharmaceutical company in the UK awarded CSL the contract to design, manufacture and install a specialist conveying system to handle nasal sprays.

The task was to provide an efficient handling system to convey small – some 30mm in diameter by 105mm high – polyethylene bottles upwards and overhead through cleanroom conditions at speeds of 200 a minute. CSL says the packaging's smooth surface and small footprint base makes them too unstable to transport on conventional conveyors. The nasal sprays are transferred from a filling and capping machine on guided 1.25in (33mm) slat conveyors with variable speed drive and carried around 900 bends to a side grip elevator. They are then conveyed upwards onto an enclosed 2.4m high overhead conveyor which passes through the walls of a number of adjacent cleanrooms and back to floor level to collect on a rotary table. CSL says it designed a number of features to maximise line efficiency and prevent possible blockages in feeding the elevator and collecting table. Two strategically positioned "fallen bottle chicanes" were built into the slat conveyor at either end to evacuate and capture fallen bottles and both the side grip and discharge elevators and the joining high level transit conveyor over the cleanroom are fully enclosed with clear polycarbonate. Each side grip conveyor is powered by two SEW geared motors to maintain a positive, but gentle grip on the bottles.