The modular approach to cleanroom conveying offers numerous advantages for manufacturers such as increased flexibility, reduced costs, and the ability to take a more proactive approach to changes in technology or levels of demand.

Cleanroom production lies at the heart of many of the world’s leading industries, including medical and pharmaceutical. The clean industrial environment can encompass the entire assembly/manufacturing process, leaving only packing and shipping to be done in a non-cleanroom area, or the manufacturer can isolate only certain facets of the process as a cleanroom environment. Increasingly, the trend has been toward the latter, due to cost savings and flexibility. The simplest way to do this is to take a modular approach, in which each manufacturing step requiring a clean environment is treated as a self-contained process. Each process station can then be operated within the appropriate cleanroom specifications.

The most logical approach to handling product within a clean modular-type assembly process is to use modular conveyors. Modular conveyors are commonly used in conjunction with standard cleanroom components, such as HEPA filters, cool zone sterilization, and hermetically sealed entry/exit gates to minimize the risk of product exposure to the environment outside each module. Modular conveyors, which are made from bolt-together components and aluminum framing, provide a high level of flexibility. In industries where production needs can suddenly change, or where sudden innovation is common, the modular approach helps manufacturers employ rapid and proactive methods to meet the demands of new developments.

Along with flexibility, modular conveyors can help manufacturers achieve the goal of cost savings through isolation of specific processes within cleanroom conditions. In the pharmaceutical industry, these processes can include ovens for dehydration of pharmaceutical solutions, pill compression, bottle filling, and sealed blister packaging. Depyrogenation of pharmaceutical glassware, such as ampuls, is made more efficient through the use of a conveyor within a clean-environment tunnel. The use of separate cleanroom areas within the same plant can also help prevent cross-contamination between pharmaceutical products and batches. The medical supply industry has applied similar, process-based cleanroom techniques to ensure sterile bandages, syringes, gauzes, razors, chemistry analysis kits, and surgical instruments.

What modular conveyors should do

The use of modular conveyors makes it easier to reconfigure the production process in response to (or anticipation of) future demands.

The most critical requirement for a modular conveyor in a cleanroom environment is, of course, its specification. Conveyors rated to class 100,000 are readily available, but for processes requiring true contamination control, class 100,000 is well out of range. Indeed, a truly sensitive process will require a vastly stricter specification (down to class 1 in some cases, such as semiconductor manufacturing); while other processes in the same facility require only class 100, 1,000 or 10,000. This wide range of cleanroom requirements can present a challenge in terms of conveyor system planning and layout. In addition to contaminants, a modular cleanroom conveyor must also protect materials from damage caused during the manufacturing process itself – including, the conveyor itself.

Modular conveyors also should be truly modular in design: Pre-assembled, and available in a wide variety of section lengths and widths appropriate to the application. Some applications require materials to travel several inches, while others require materials to be conveyed several feet, or farther.

Conveyor width is also crucial. For example, if a system layout includes manual stations, it’s important to minimize pallet width to ensure the operator does not have to over-extend across the station.

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