Tablets & Capsules

TC0514

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Once back in Cleveland, Slaby sent samples of Reese products to Mod ular, and one of its technicians confirmed that the VC-12 would do the job. "We sat down to do some numbers and it was pretty much a no-brainer," Slaby said. He OK'd the purchase in May 2013, and Modular began pulling together a complete packaging line that included an un scrambler, con- veyor belt, the counter-filler, cottoner, capper, induction sealer, and labler. Next came the factory-acceptance test (FAT) of the counter-filler, and Slaby was nervous, wondering whe - ther he and his colleagues had invested wisely. "They assured us a lot and they were laughing a little because we were nervous, 'Russ, this is an entry-level line. It's going to run itself.' So there was a lot of chuckling going on and at the end of the first day things were pretty good," Slaby said. The second day entailed some trou- bleshooting to control dust, but every- thing was resolved. "After the FAT, I thought, 'Wow, if this does what it's doing now back in Ohio, we're going to be pretty happy with it.'" All the equipment arrived 16 weeks after the order was placed. The heart of the system, the VC-12, uses two 14 May 2014 Tablets & Capsules Reese Pharmaceutical brings packaging operation in-house 3 years, as growth ta - pered, the ef - fect of pack - aging expenses on profit became more noticeable. "That's when our group started the mission to find a pill-filling line," Slaby said. The search for an entry-level counter-filler began in January 2013, with Slaby gathering information online. Next, he and some colleagues paid a visit to a supplier in New Jersey, where they evaluated an elec- tronic disk-fed counter-filler that appeared suitable. To meet production requirements, however, Reese would need to install two of them side by side. "There are advantages and disad- vantages to that," Slaby said. "If one goes down, you've got a backup. But when you've got two, you've got to worry about two sets of parts and keeping everything in sync." Next, Slaby and his co-workers visited Modular Packaging Systems, Randolph, NJ. "It was night and day between the two facilities," Slaby said. Whereas the first supplier's site had a mom-and-pop feel, the Modu - lar facility was a "fairly large building very well kept and with a lot of action going on." Slaby explained the project and gathered information about the company's VC-12, a 12- channel electronic counter-filler. The heart of Reese Pharmaceutical's bottling line is a VC-12 electronic counter- filler. The 12-channel filler uses two trays that release with a push of a button for fast cleaning during product changeovers. I N D U S T R Y a p p l i c a t i o n Reese Pharmaceutical, Cleveland, OH, opened its doors in 1907 as a small, independent pharmacy that compounded specialty medicines and sold them to local pharmacies. Today, the company employs about 45 people and offers more than 30 over-the-counter products to cus- tomers nationwide. The products— supplied in private-label packaging or under the Reese brand—include cough and cold medicines, pain relievers, and dietary supplements. Business has always been steady, and for many years the company served between 6,000 and 7,000 inde- pendent pharmacies. On typical jobs, Reese would bring in perhaps 20,000 units of a product and then repackage it in smaller lots, label them, and ship them. Then business took off. "We had some medium-size chains, and then we had a couple products that really hit big, and all of a sudden we're in some of the largest chains in the United States," said Russ Slaby, vice president of operations at Reese. "We didn't have the capabilities to expand that fast and so we relied heavily on our contract manufacturers and a couple contract packagers." Capping costs While the business was growing rapidly, the cost of packaging drew little attention, but over the course of d-Modularindapp_14-15_Masters 5/14/14 10:14 AM Page 14

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