A flaker system was installed to produce new products as part of a multi-million dollar expansion in a generic pharmaceutical manufacturing facility. Trials were performed on a flake making system that would combine active ingredients with melted carriers. The product would then be solidified on the cooled drum of the flaker and scraped into containers for further processing.

In a flaking system, ingredients are combined and melted in a kettle with a heating jacket. The molten product is then released from the bottom of the kettle into the flaking machine, which has a small hot roll and a large cold roll in close proximity to each other. The product flows into the “nip” between the rolls.

The hot roll keeps the product molten. The cold roll picks it up and cools it as it rotates. The product is solidified by the time it reaches the scraping blade, where it is scraped off and falls into a collection container.

High accuracy temperature control is needed to keep the product molten but not heat it any more than necessary. An additional challenge was that different products with different melting points would be processed so the temperature set points were variable. JNE designed a system to control the heating and cooling of the product to very strict tolerances. The flake making system was designed to: