Streamlining production brings Solvay Pharmaceuticals a ten-fold return on investment

A $20,000 investment in parts and standardized packaging procedures has returned Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc. a $210,000 annual savings--a gain that will continue year after year. And, that was only Phase I. Phase II will streamline the same production line even further and is expected to pay for itself as quickly.

A significant part of the project was reconfiguring Solvay's cartoner, with the manufacturer's help, to seal cartons rather than the unit-dose sample packages for which it had been originally purchased.

Solvay operates a dedicated line to fill and pack two of its high-demand pharmaceuticals--Rowasa[R] Rectal Suspension Enema and Cortenema[R] Hydrocortisone Enema USP. Each batch of each product totals 5,000 cartons (35,000 bottles)--a substantial run. Both products use the same size bottles (identical except for decoration) which after filling are packed seven to a tray in formed plastic trays supplied by Plastic Ingenuity Inc. Rowasa, a highly oxygen-sensitive product, is then nitrogen flushed and wrapped in a foil pouch on a Mustang wrapper from Doboy Packaging Machinery prior to cartoning on a system from Adco Manufacturing. Currently, trays of Cortenema bottles go directly to cartoning without being wrapped.

Downstream from the wrapper, sealed pouches enter an 8-foot Dorner Manufacturing Co. conveyor that carries them to a station where they are hand-loaded into cartons, together with an informational insert. Cartons are coded with lot number and expiration date, then fed into the Adco cartoner, which tucks and seals flaps and delivers cartons to case packing.

Prior to the system reconfiguration, packing the products involved considerably more hand work. Filled bottles were fed onto a large collecting table. When the table was filled, the filler was shut down and the accumulated bottles were hand-packed into the formed trays (seven to a tray). During Rowasa runs, trays were then fed into the Doboy wrapper, inserted into cartons, with inserts, and sealed--all by hand. Cortenema enemas skipped the wrapping process, but otherwise followed the same procedure. When the table was cleared, filling resumed.

Redesigned Package Cuts Costs and Inventory

The process of change began in early 1997, when Solvay decided to consolidate the line components for efficiency's sake, using its existing equipment to full potential, and to substantially reduce or eliminate all hand operations. The Adco cartoner, for instance, had originally been purchased to handle the cartoning of single doses for physicians' samples. With Adco's help and about $1,800 worth of new parts, the same machine was refit to handle the standard seven-bottle production packages and moved into the production line.

At the same time, Solvay redesigned the Rowasa package in two ways. First, it made the tray and the carton slightly longer. Minor leakage problems in the past had resulted from the foil wrap turning too tight a radius during sealing, putting pressure on the contents. The longer format allowed a more comfortable seal.

Second, Rowasa had been packaged for years in an E-flute corrugated carton, for rigidity--a choice also dictated by past leakage concerns. When switching to a larger carton, Solvay also changed its cartons (for both Rowasa and Cortenema) to a less costly solid bleached sulfate (SBS) material. It also eliminated the clear clamshell which previously held the Cortenema and adopted a single tray for both products--a further cost-cutting standardization for Solvay and a waste reduction for end-users.

Following the older system, packaging one batch of Rowasa (35,000 bottles) required about 15 hours, almost two full shifts. Today, the same process takes nine to 10 hours, or two-thirds of the time. "The gain," points out Ken McKay, Solvay's senior packaging engineer, "is because we keep everything moving. We are packaging 15 cartons per minute, almost double what we were under the old system."

Given seven months of production, McKay estimates annual savings in direct costs of $210,000, a savings that will continue, and perhaps increase as operators become more familiar with the procedure. "Our investment to accomplish this saving," McKay estimates, "has been about $20,000 in new parts, conveyors and engineering."

Material Costs Offset Labor Costs

Phase II of Solvay's reworking of the enema line is already underway and is expected to be in operation during the first quarter of 1998. Solvay Pharmaceuticals will further automate the line by replacing the accumulation table (where the bottles are placed in trays) with a conveyor.

The company will also standardize the packaging of Rowasa and Cortenema. Currently, because Cortenema does not require nitrogen flushing and pouching, it bypasses the Doboy wrapper by way of a 25-foot conveyor that takes it from the traying operation to the cartoning stage. For each run, that conveyor is rolled into place, then removed when Rowasa is being packaged. Cortenema cannot simply be passed through the wrapper without wrapping, since it is the moving foil wrap that draws trays through the machine.

In future, however, Solvay has decided to wrap Cortenema (without nitrogen flushing the pouch) to eliminate the cost and labor of moving the additional conveyor in and out of position as product runs change. The annual additional cost of foil (approximately $10,000) will be offset by the savings in labor. The mechanics who do the conveyor shifting will have time to do higher priority work on the company's other production lines.

"These changes required no new equipment other than the two conveyors, which represent half of our investment," McKay points out. "Essentially, the gains result from standardizing the components and the procedures for handling the two products."

For more information from Adco Manufacturing, call (209) 875-5563 or Circle 584. For information from Doboy Packaging Machinery, call (715) 246-6511 or Circle 585. For information from Dorner Manufacturing Co., call (800) 397-8664 or Circle 586. For information from Plastic Ingenuity Inc., call (608) 798-3071 or Circle 587.

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