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Modular Packaging Systems was founded in 1965 and evolved into a trusted expert in the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries. In 2000, the company began manufacturing their own packaging machines. Today, this systems integrator offers a broad spectrum of bottle filling, electronic counting and labeling machines.

For more than five years, Modular Packaging Systems has been relying on automation solutions from B&R. The latest success to come out of this collaboration is the EC-12 line of electronic counter controls, which features state-of-the-art motion control technology and custom HMI panels that ensure maximum reliability at top speeds. Customers also benefit from seamless product control throughout the entire bottle filling process.

It's easy to integrate the new labeling solution into the bottle filling line from Modular Packaging Systems.

After years of rapid growth, Modular Packaging Systems found that production space was becoming a limiting factor. "We had outgrown our facilities and decided to move to our new headquarters in Randolph, New Jersey, where we have laid a foundation for continued growth." explains Andy Smith, sales manager at Modular Packaging Systems. "The new 27,000 square foot facility now provides plenty of room for our innovative new projects. Having the larger facility gives us the ability to offer new product lines, like our labelers, and integrate end-of-line equipment into our systems."

As resources for investing in modern production technology become more constrained, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, the ability to integrate machine components in packaging lines has taken center stage. "What we offer are fully integrated turnkey filling and packaging systems," says Smith. We equip them with OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) tracking and centralized monitoring systems to guarantee our customers high-quality results. OEE function tracking uses sensors on the line to collect data and determine where bottlenecks occur, which allows our machines to provide maximum productivity."

The expanded technical possibilities at the new location has allowed Modular Packaging Systems to add a labeler – the MBL-200 – to its latest product line. A particular advantage of the new machine is the ease with which it can be integrated in Modular's bottle filling machine. The new labeler applies pressure sensitive labels to the bottles and also inspects labels for proper batch, date and barcode data as well as ensuring that they have been applied to the bottle properly.

A Power Panel with a Windows operating system provides powerful real-time control and an integrated image processing system running Acuity vision software in one compact unit. The system architecture is based on a POWERLINK network, which provides high-speed data exchange between the X20 I/O modules and ACOPOS servo drives, and VFDs connected via X2X Link. "B&R technology reduces hardware costs for our customers and streamlines integration into existing lines," says Smith. "As a result, we can now offer faster and more reliable processing of critical data."

B&R's latest drive technology has helped Modular Packaging Systems improve the speed and accuracy of their filling and labeling systems considerably. The output quality and accuracy of each component has also been increased, resulting in an overall boost to the productivity of the line as a whole.

A second Power Panel provides centralized line control and monitoring, is capable of performing serialization and OEE tracking and also runs training videos. Larger pharmaceutical companies are getting on board with serialization, and momentum is building toward defining a standard. "We've had more and more requests for serialization in the past two years," says Smith. "The Power Panel is ideal because it is powerful enough to handle the required Windows applications and vision systems needed for this upgrade. That's why we are taking the next step to a central monitoring system, which can also be used as the server for serialization."

"Today, our customers benefit from simple integration of individual machine components into their existing filling and packaging lines," Smith continues. "Another benefit is reduced cost of ownership thanks to the sophisticated hardware solution. B&R's Automation Studio software platform allows us to handle machine control, motion control, HMI and communication, all within a single development environment. This saves us integration time and reduces maintenance costs."