Case Study: Cutting Changeover Time on a Multi-SKU Oral Liquid Line in Howrah

An oral liquids manufacturer in Howrah, West Bengal, fills fourteen syrup and suspension SKUs across three PET bottle sizes. Demand had moved towards shorter runs of more products, so the line spent a growing share of every week in changeover rather than production.

The Operational Challenge

• Changeover: around 210 minutes per format change on the existing 8-head gravity filler, most of it spent stripping, cleaning and re-setting nozzles.
• Fill accuracy: variation of ±2.5% meant the line routinely overfilled to protect the label claim.
• Closure integrity: semi-automatic screw capping gave inconsistent torque, and leaking bottles were found at final inspection.

The Engineering Solution

1. LFS-240 rotary liquid filler: flowmeter dosing with diving nozzles that follow the liquid level to control foaming in suspensions, and a CIP manifold that clamps to all nozzles, so cleaning no longer requires strip-down.
2. AC-100 rotary capper: servo-driven heads applying programmable torque, followed by induction foil sealing.
3. Recipe-driven formats: fill volume, nozzle depth, conveyor timing and capping torque are stored per SKU, so a format change is a change-part swap and a recipe selection.

Results

| Metric | Before | After | |---|---|---| | Format changeover | ~210 minutes | ~130 minutes | | Fill accuracy (200 mL) | ±2.5% | ±0.5% | | Leaking-bottle rejects | 1.2% | 0.1% |