Sunday, November 6, 2016

Benefits Of Standardized Tablet Punches And Dies To The Market

By Carl Lewis


The pharmaceutical industry is one of those that has the most manufacturing and making of products. Products may vary in form depending on the method of intake. These can be in syrup, tablet, capsule or injected fluids. While this is not an industry monopolized by one big company, you can assure that there are only a few who make medicine with great quality.

Tablet compression was once a manual method, but with the development of technology, manufacturers have found a way to automate the process. This makes assembly line production of tablets and the like easier. Tablet punches and dies are popular machines to assist in tooling.

There has been a call to have similar metrics and specifications for all the machines that are being utilized everywhere. If you are the type that take tablets as form of supplement and medication you would be able to tell that they come in different shapes and sizes. Certain ingredients, apart from the powdered concoction of medicine is mixed with fillers and solidifying substances.

Before the automation and assembly line production of tablets was a more manual method involving presses. Tablets are not only for medicine, they can be for anything that can have a powdered form. They have been used for candy and other substances. While there is no one standard that is being followed globally, there are still two metrics most popularly followed by manufacturers.

You may be wondering what the big deal is about the whole standardization thing, it is just tablets, after all. Having the same specifications for all the equipment, tablet dies and punches alike, for this machinery can affect manufacturing a lot. On the consumer end, this can lessen the cost of the product. At the manufacturer end, this can lessen costs of operations and other supplementary, over head expenses.

Procurement, maintenance and operation would also be easier for contractor or OEM staff since extra knowledge needed for machine specifications is avoided. This also saves companies from replacement and other fixes since parts for the machine would be easily found. The EOMs who make these parts would also be able to deliver their product faster.

The differences are very small but these minor variations are what makes interchangeability impossible between machines. The punches and dies have to be compatible for them to work properly. This makes the whole tablet making process costly. Pharmaceutical companies would have to have a variety of machines just to follow the set qualifications depending on where they will be selling the product.

The concept of tablet compression machinery having one standard has been around since the 90s. There was little interest about the matter due to businesses and the nature of competition, but since the middle of the decade, the Euro ISO has been established and started to become widely used outside the US.

Technically speaking, there are very minor difference in the table punches and dies that are used in the machines. But it does not make sense how these small variations can affect cross compatibility of equipment which would help lower costs for production. Putting up the standard potentially lessens the overall costs of production which would lessen the cost for consumers.




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