How can a production line’s performance be increased and downtime reduced? The solution is to have accumulators between upstream and downstream machines. This allows pharmaceutical manufacturers to decouple their machines from one another, so that downstream ones can still be fed with product even if an upstream stoppage occurs. Körber’s flexible solutions help customers achieve significant increases in product throughput.
In a perfect world, every machine in the pharmaceutical production line runs at 100% without interruption. But in reality, every machine has its downtimes. These are usually caused by malfunctions. Furthermore, machines with differing production speeds and reaction times can also have a negative impact on overall line efficiency. If a machine goes down, the product flow is interrupted. This can force an entire production line into a costly standstill.
The solution for this is quite simple: an accumulator that can cache the product in the transfer zone between machines. So even in case of an upstream stoppage, downstream machines will still receive enough product to keep going. The same thing applies in the opposite case, with upstream machines able to continue by sending product into the accumulator for storage. Furthermore, an accumulator can also help compensate for any small differences in machine speeds.
