Filling systems in the pharmaceutical industry

• What was needed: multi-axis energy chain triflex® R
• Requirements: High movement loads stressed the cable and led to cable breakages. The task was to make the handling reliable and to bring it up to the latest trade show standard. The number of free-hanging electrical and pneumatic cables was to be bundled.
• Sector: Medical technology, pharmaceutical industry
• Success for the customer: The triflex® R guides the countless electrical and pneumatic cables safely and compactly. Thanks to the round design, the energy supply system glides over the outer contour of the robot and cannot get caught or jammed. Defined minimum bending radii also significantly extend the service life.

Bayer AG's Parenteralia plant fulfils all the requirements for the manufacture of modern pharmaceuticals. Parenteral drugs are injected or infused directly into the tissue or bloodstream, bypassing the digestive tract. Parenterals are therefore subject to the highest quality standards, particularly with regard to microbial and particulate purity. Fully automated systems are used in the filling process, for example. After the bottles have been cleaned, sterilised, filled and sealed in various steps, a high-precision pick & place robot is used. It places the filled ampoules or vials on pallets in a mesh box before they are sent to the inspection, packaging and dispatch areas. A robot had already been used for this application before, but it had reached the end of its service life. Due to the load, cable breakages occurred time and again. The specific movements performed by the robot put a great deal of stress on the power cables. The task now was to make the handling system reliable and to bring it up to the latest trade show standard. The number of free-hanging electrical and pneumatic cables was to be bundled.

The disorganised pile of countless electrical and pneumatic cables was bundled into a triflex® R energy supply system. Even at first glance, the entire system looks compact and clean. Thanks to its round design, the energy supply system glides over the outer contour of the robot. It cannot get caught or jammed. As the pallet cage to be filled is not very large, this is an extremely important point. The energy chain guides the cable with a defined minimum bend radius. The bend radius is the same in all directions.
The triflex® system shows its strengths wherever movements are in more than two directions. These are primarily applications on 6-axis robots, which can be found, for example, in all environments in welding and painting applications, in gluing and grinding technology, but also in the assembly of gears or in screwing processes. It is also used in Scara robots at extremely high speeds. Spring rods can be integrated into the triflex® R in order to specifically integrate pretension. They give the energy supply a specific alignment and keep it away from interfering edges, for example. In conventional systems, this is sometimes achieved using complex springs, cable pulls or guide systems. In addition to the increased space requirement and new interfering edges, these external elements exert further forces on the energy supply system - with all the resulting disadvantages.