Although perhaps not the most alluring equipment at the party, gravimetric feeders set the mass balance and throughput rate for every continuous OSD process. Feeding accuracy and response time are arguably the most important performance criteria affecting the ability of a continuous manufacturing system to maintain a controlled state of operation. A loss-in-weight feeder generally…

The FDA’s unambiguously clear promotion of continuous manufacturing in the pharmaceutical industry is nothing new. Rather, a valid claim can be made that the agency has been actively supporting continuous manufacturing dating back to its 2004 FDA 21st Century Initiative, which was intended to encourage the pharmaceutical industry to adopt technological advances and implement risk-based…

Conventional batch dispensing operations, which typically feature labor intensive weighing and material handling tasks, are replaced by gravimetric loss-in-weight feeders, which precisely meter ingredients into the process at a constant weight per unit of time. WIP is virtually eliminated in the continuous process, at least through compression. Eliminating post-compression WIP in a coated tablet process…