It doesn't take long to get Chris Berwick excited about his company's commitment to continuous improvement and its relentless advancement of technology. As the engineering manager of the Alcan Packaging Pharma Center in Shelbyville, KY, since 1996, Berwick has been pivotal in securing much of the ongoing investment to build Alcan's proprietary multi-layer laminates for the pharmaceutical industry.

Alcan represents one of the world's largest packaging groups with global leadership positions in pharmaceutical, beauty, and food packaging. The packaging sector employs 34,000 people in 180 manufacturing facilities, located in 28 countries, and represents approximately 30 percent of the corporation's total revenues.

The Shelbyville location incorporates both Food and Pharma operations with 270,000 sq ft under one roof on a 38-acre site. The Alcan Packaging Pharma Center represents a dedicated 70,000-sq-ft specialized operation, which is 100-percent focused on healthcare packaging. According to Berwick, "The Pharma Center is a clean manufacturing facility, which follows the cGMP guidelines applicable to the converting industry and has been certified for ISO 9001–2000, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001."

The Alcan Packaging Pharma Center produces a wide variety of specialty pharmaceutical packaging products, including its ultra high-barrier, cold-formable Formpack® material, printed and unprinted push-through and child-resistant blister lidding options with in-line, fully registered two-side printing capabilities, a variety of retortable flexible packaging structures, and printed pouch stock.

New product introductions will positively shape Alcan's leadership position this year. The addition of two thermoformable base-web films, Polybar®-ACLAR® (ACLAR is a registered trademark of Honeywell Intl.) and Polybar®-COC, creates a unique one-stop-shop opportunity for its customers to source all blister-pack materials from one competent supplier. A full range of new product security solutions to combat drug counterfeiting and help secure supply chains will also become available under the Smart PAK™ and N'CRYPT® headings from the Shelbyville plant.

To protect Alcan's global position and strengthen its partnerships with leading companies in the pharmaceutical industries, standards are set very high. "We invest millions annually to ensure every packaging system produces superior products in the highest quality," says Berwick. "We've retrofitted virtually every piece of equipment with proprietary or state-of-the-art innovations to gain a competitive advantage and superior performance wherever possible."

The facility currently operates Bobst Rotomec (Charlotte, NC) gravure presses, Polytype (Hackettstown, NJ) Triplex adhesive coater/laminators, slitter/rewinders manufactured by Kampf Machinery Corp. (Windsor, CT) and WT Wickeltechnik GmbH (Wiehl-Marienhagen, Germany) along with other converting and support equipment.

The retrofit work started with the basics: guiding the web more precisely through the gravure presses and the three- or four-layer lamination process. "One of our first steps was to retrofit the web guides to remove hydraulics from the web path," Berwick explains. "They were replaced with AccuWeb (Madison, WI) DC servomotor linear actuators because AccuWeb was the only company that could provide electromechanical systems to cover any application, with thrust ratings as high as 60,000 pounds." The actuators' ball screw/lead screw assembly provides instant web corrections, improving guide accuracy, the supplier says.

"Our first concern was to remove the chance of a hydraulic leak near the web path, but we gained many other benefits such as faster response, greater reliability, and ease of installation," says Patrick Mays, Alcan maintenance supervisor. "These systems continue to run trouble-free with virtually zero maintenance."

Next, Alcan began replacing mechanical auto-edge seeking devices with AccuWeb's Wide-Array™ ultrasonic edge detectors in its chaser-slave systems. (See sidebar.) The former mechanical edge-seeking units had too many parts that could fail, which created downtime and higher waste.

The WideArray provides 18+ in. of detection area, so the web width could be changed on the fly without moving the detectors. The WideArrays never need calibration due to compensation technology that continuously recalibrates matched to the current environment, the supplier says. "The system has become invisible to our operators, which allows them to concentrate on other ways to maximize productivity," adds Alcan senior operator Larry Nutt.

One of the Bobst Rotomec gravure presses is still in line for retrofitting this year. It provided a good barometer on the value of the investments, when comparing uptime and spoilage rates. "Given our ability to drive material improvements, it doesn't take long to pay back the investment," Berwick says.

In the finishing department, the hydraulics on Alcan's Kampf slitter/rewinders were also retrofitted with AccuWeb's UHT-6 actuators. CCD line guides were replaced with AccuBeam® II Digital Color Line Guide sensors. AccuWeb's AccuBeam II uses patented optoelectronics that provide four different light-source options for optimal color contrast and three selectable projection ports for the best light incidence angle for any given web characteristic.

"The AccuBeams were the only line guides that could see pastels on our laminated foils," explains Melissa Coons, finishing department supervisor. "The AccuWeb line guide combined with the micro-response we get from their actuators allows us to hold much tighter tolerances."

The Alcan Packaging Pharma Center is continuing its strong investment in technology. This year, the converter will add additional space to house a new ink room and parts-washing department, and a further capacity expansion is on the drawing board for 2006.

"The march toward perfection is a relentless one, but Alcan has both the will and the wherewithal to get there," says Berwick. On his desk are the capital proposals he's drafting for the next two years. It seems the Pharma Center is taking nothing for granted.