Author Archives: Don Pretty

Print and Apply Label – Pharmaceutical Distribution

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Customer:       Accredo Health Solutions

Location:         Memphis, TN

Project Summary

Accredo Health Solutions required a turnkey order consolidation, case packaging, and conveying system with case closure, labeling, and verification. Each case needed to receive a pre-printed serialized license plate along with a separate customer shipping label.

GCI Solution

GCI worked closely with the Accredo corporate engineering group to develop a materials handling solution designed with physical space constraints for both infeed components as well as out feed full cases. This system incorporated:

  • Driven roller conveyor
  • O-ring pop-up transfers
  • Belt conveyor sections
  • In-line check weighing
  • APAL station(s) with Sato Thermal Transfer Engine
  • Unattended barcode scanning
  • Automated box taping

Five hundred feet of conveyor, along with two automatic case sealers, a checkweigher, and ten packing stations were fit into an area of 3600 square feet, with no overlapping lanes.  GCI authored and executed a full quality plan including Installation Qualification (IQ), Operational Qualification (OQ) and Performance Qualification (PQ) test protocol.

Accredo APAL

APAL Station with Box Sealer

The System was outfitted with an Allen Bradley  ControlLogix PLC for conveyor control and an Invensys Wonderware SCADA node for HMI, manual control, annunciation and recovery. The print engine, ERP interface and execution system for label printing and order weight verification were designed and implemented as background services on the same platform.

As a result of these improvements, shipping capacity was increased from 3000 units per day to 10000 units per day.

 

Adhesive Batching

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Customer:

 Permacel Division of Nitto Denko

Location:

 Pleasant Prairie, WI

Project Summary

KM1 Kettle Screen

  • Development of S88.1 compliant batch control system for adhesive film manufacturing site with four major process cells distributed through several mix buildings.
  • (4) Rockwell ControlLogix processors with ControlNet to Intrinsically Safe ControlNet via fiber optic communication.
  • 2000 I/O points provide control for total of 22 processing units with shared tank farm and utility resources.
  • System uses Wonderware HMI front end on (11) workstations with custom phase control engine developed for ControlLogix sub-system.
  • Provided intrinsically safe electrical design for all areas in facility, which are NFPA Class I, Division 1 and 2 rated.
  • Designed and implemented information store and web based reporting system using Wonderware Historian and Information Server products.

Nitto Architecture

System Architecture

Batch Processing

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Batch Processing

Compounding Application

Customer:       Coty US LLC

Location:         Sanford, NC

Project Summary

Batching Control System Architecture

Cosmetic Creams Batch Processing

  • Development and implementation of a complete 6 unit compounding system.
  • ISA S88 compliant, batch server based recipe management and supervisory control with Rockwell HMI layer and A-B ControlLogix control sub-system.
  • Integrated with existing McHugh DM Plus warehouse management system and Oracle Apps ERP system.
  • Complete functionality from raw materials receiving thru industrial chemistry to compounding and finished goods inventory.
  • System featured in quarterly edition of Rockwell Software’s Software Connections magazine and presented at RS-TechEd 
  GCI-AB-Journal-Article