From 45 to 110 cycles per minute

 

 

Engelhard and Christ: A success story

 

Engelhard Arzneimittel is an internationally successful pharmaceutical company with 480 employees based in Niederdorfelden near Frankfurt/Main. What began in 1826 with the Rosen-Apotheke, is today one of the leading brand manufacturers in the OTC sector. The company's most important products include Prospan, Isla, and the wound-healing ointment Tyrosur.

 

Until recently, Engelhard's ointments were automatically bundled and stretchbanded on a Christ film wrapping machine, and then packed by hand into shipping cases. With the desire to automate this manual step and increase output & efficiency, Engelhard set out to find a fully automated packaging solution. And once again, they found what they were looking for in their long-time partner Christ Packing Systems.

 

The choice quickly fell on the CaseTeq 230: A fully automatic case packer that stacks the bundled products, side-loads them into the shipping case, photographs them with an integrated camera (Track & Trace), and then seals the shipping carton.

 

This is what convinced Engelhard of the CaseTeq 230:

• Extremely compact with 2 x 3.60 m
• Huge format range: 11 formats on one machine, from very small to very large
• Fast, easy, tool-free format changeover in just 10 minutes
• Large carton magazine: Long autonomous run before intervention is necessary
• Additional process reliability through active case erection and active case sealing, which prevents buckling and damage to the shipping case

 

However, there was still a lot of work to be done before automation could get underway. In the interest of holistic optimization and increased efficiency, together with Engelhard:

• new packaging materials were selected
• formats were combined,
• and the number of cases was reduced.

 

With this level of preparation, nothing stood in the way of designing and producing the case packer on schedule. During the fabric acceptance test (FAT) in June, Christian Belzer, Head of Packaging & Maintenance at Engelhard Arzneimittel, summarized the benefits:

 

„Thanks to the automation with the CaseTeq 230 from Christ, we can more than double the output from 45 to 110 cycles per minute, with 20% less manpower on the line. The work steps on the packaging line are also more ergonomic, more varied and less monotonous, which is particularly important to us.“

 

What else spoke for Christ as a partner?

 

„The chemistry with the Christ employees in sales and service was right from the start, and communication is always at eye level. This is also an important factor for me when deciding on a machine manufacturer“, explains Belzer.

 

The bottom line for Engelhard:

• Higher productivity
• Higher process reliability
• Consistently high packaging quality
• Scalability of output to meet increased demand
• Freeing up of personnel resources for higher-value activities
• Increased employee satisfaction through a more ergonomic and varied workplace

 

We would like to thank our team for the excellent work, Christian Belzer & the whole Engelhard team for the successful FAT, and we are looking forward to the installation of the CaseTeq 230 in Niederdorfelden!