The pharmaceutical manufacturer Artesan has been testing the new F10i from Fette Compacting since July 2019 – and can report some incredible results after only a few months. The F10i is the first tablet press of a new generation of machines with which Fette Compacting has further developed the established i-series. As a versatile and efficient single rotary press, it specializes in small batches and can be swiftly adapted to a wide variety of requirements.

Days instead of weeks

Even commissioning of the F10i at the production site in Lüchow sparked a wave of enthusiasm. It usually takes pharmaceutical manufacturers several weeks to set up a new machine for production. This period was reduced to a mere two days for the F10i, thanks to the cross-generation system compatibility offered by the new i-series.

Apart from the F10i, Artesan also uses other tablet presses from Fette Compacting, including the P1200, P2200, 1200i, and FE55 models. Despite its innovative design, almost all of the process-relevant assemblies featured in the F10i are identical to those of previous models.

More output, less energy consumption

The production capacity displayed by the F10i at Artesan was particularly impressive: on average, it increased the output of all products tested by 63 percent. In individual cases, it was even possible to quadruple the previous production volume. “We adapted the process parameters during installation and optimized the filling device set-up. This noticeably improved the output displayed by the F10i,” explains Jörg Gierds, Senior Product Manager at Fette Compacting.

Despite the high level of output, the F10i works economically. So economically, in fact, that during the entire period of use, Artesan was able to save 15 percent energy over a comparably high-performance machine.

The F10i also proved to be efficient in terms of time as a valuable resource. In order to minimize cleaning of the F10i, the engineers at Fette Compacting have reduced the surfaces of the cladding components to be cleaned by 70 percent. For Artesan, this means 45 minutes saved for each product change. Over an entire year of production, this adds up to 3,910 minutes which corresponds with an additional 66 hours of production.

No problem presented by complex geometries

The fact that the F10i makes lots of things much easier, particularly in the case of complex geometries, was revealed by the production of a convex tablet. On account of its unusual shape, it was often necessary in the past to align the tablet scraper of a machine to the format of the respective tablet. This adjustment was not necessary with the F10i.

Considering these numerous advantages, Team Leader Torsten Schewe draws a clear conclusion: “The field tests were convincing right across the board. With the F10i, Fette Compacting has built a tablet press which represents a real gain at many levels.”