June’s machine of the month is an ALpharma system manufactured for a global pharmaceutical company. The machine was required to apply tamper evident seals to both ends of a carton and a third hologram label for anti-counterfeiting at a rate of 200 boxes per minute. It also incorporates a checking system to inspect and automatically reject any incorrectly labelled products.
The machine is controlled by a Siemens PLC with 9” touch panel and provides traceability of the data and working parameters of the machine under the CFR21 part 11 protocol. To reliably reach the labelling speeds required, the machine controls the boxes by aligning them at the machine infeed and then spacing them with a twin belt spacing device. The system is also equipped with three ALritma label heads, one for the hologram and two for the seals and two shaped guides to provide the corner bending just after the label has been applied.
Watch the machine in action
View a 3D animation of the machine