Sunday, November 6, 2016

Why There Is A Need To Standardize Tablet Punches And Dies

By Carl Lewis


Medicine can come in many form and variations. The method of intake may also vary. But if there was anything you can be sure of, it is that all these are created by pharmaceutical companies. Another things about this industry is how there are not many that manufacture medicine. This may even be considered as a monopolization of such an industry.

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.

It becomes a different story for the manufacturers. The standardization of these parts and equipment in machinery can save so much in overhead expenses. Tablets, specifically, come in different forms and sizes. Its dosage can differ without changing its physical form, but the question remains to be why they all look different. Standardization is meant to address these differences to solve manufacturing difficulties.

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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