Fette Compacting supports By-Health to achieve efficient production

By-Health, a manufacturer of dietary supplements based in China, has completely revolutionised the way it produces Keylid glucosamine tablets with the installation of several tablet compacting machines from Fette Compacting. The technology fully supports By-Health’s initial move to transparent manufacturing and its subsequent transformation to intelligent production.

Founded in October 1995, By-Health is a publicly listed company in China that specialises in the research and production of health supplements. After 20 years of development, it has become one of the most benchmarked enterprises in the Chinese dietary supplement industry.

In 2012, By-Health commissioned the third phase of its factory, which boasts a total annual production capacity of up to 5bn tablets, 3mn soft capsules, 500mn hard capsules, 250mn bags and 15mn cans of powder vitamin and dietary supplements respectively. The factory is certainly one of Asia’s leading dietary supplement manufacturing bases in terms of hardware. By-Health also developed the site as the first intelligent ‘transparent factory’ within China’s dietary supplement industry. A transparent factory is one where production is open or visible to the public through the use of transparent workshop walls, which means people can see By-Health’s production process and advanced production equipment. This concept officially became an AAAA-grade industries tourist attraction in China in 2018. Additionally, an online and real time site visit is possible via the internet and enabled by webcams.

Fette Compacting’s P3030 Facelift tablet press in operation at By-Health’s compacting department

Demanding production requires a robust solution

In 2012, the Keylid glucosamine chondroitin sulphate calcium supplement was introduced to market. This dietary supplement is intended to support the bone joint health of middle-aged people and geriatrics. At present, the annual sales of Keylid are more than 1bn Chinese Yuan Renminbi ($15bn). Its year-on-year growth was nearly 200% in 2018.

Keylid contains calcium carbonate, which requires high compression forces during the tablet compression process. Consequently, high performing tablet compacting machines are the most important production equipment in the manufacturing process chain of this product.

In the past, By-Health operated different tablet presses from domestic Chinese and foreign brands, yet with its production expansion, many problems occurred. These included:

• Reduced efficiency affected by machine quality – The failure rate of the original imported tablet press was high. An engineer from the supplier was frequently required to conduct on-site maintenance, and eventually the machine was sent back to the supplier’s factory for repairs. By-Health criticised the slow response of the foreign machine supplier and its lack of sufficient stock of spare parts, which caused a delay in its planned manufacturing schedule. It took several months for the supplier to send the tablet press back to the producer’s factory for repairing. By-Health, which has a great demand for higher output, simply couldn’t accept this

• Domestic tablet press becomes rudimentary – The output of the press from the Chinese supplier was 200 000 to 300 000 tablets per hour. Its footprint was 1 700mm × 2 000mm × 2 100mm with a weight of 8 000kg, which occupied too much space in By-Health’s compression room, affecting the placement of other process equipment. In addition, the aesthetics of the machine, particularly the outer surface, was very rough and not suitable for public display, according to the manufacturer’s perspective.

• High powder leakage and very low yield – The raw material powder of Keylid is yellow in colour. When operating with the domestic tablet press, the filling parts, turret surface and discharge chute all became covered with a large amount of the yellow powder. The product yield was also very low.

• Unstable tablet quality – The probability to produce bad tablets became high on the domestic press. This equipment had problems with the spindle eccentricity tolerances and great pressure measurement deviation. Ultimately, the rate of bad tablets became unacceptably high.

The strategic cooperative partner award presented to Fette Compacting for its role in assisting By-Health to transform to an intelligent factory

These problems forced By-Health to look for a suitable alternative tablet press that could fulfil the tough production requirements of Keylid glucosamine chondroitin sulphate calcium tablets. These include lengthy operations (24 hours, seven days a week) under high compression force, with a high yield and good tablet quality.

After careful and thorough investigation, in 2009 By-Health purchased its first P2020 from Fette Compacting. Since then, the P2020 from Fette Compacting has fully proven its reliability during the demanding tabletting production process with good quality tablets and high output. Additionally, Fette Compacting has a professional, efficient and competent service team that has won the highest recognition of By-Health’s team and management.

The star product: By-Health’s Keylid glucosamine chondroitin sulphate and calcium dietary supplement

Far-reaching positive feedback

The By-Health team shared this extensive feedback with Fette Compacting on the P2020 tablet press and its after sales service and technical support:

• “Fett Compacting’s tablet presses accumulate 100 years of technology development and experience, resulting in a high-quality and reliable machine with regard to the design and manufacturing process. The maintenance of the machine is easier, so the pressure on maintenance staff is much less than with other machines. Meanwhile, Fette Compacting’s service team responds quickly to requests and cooperates proactively with its customers. If problems occur, the team reaches our site within 48 hours to solve them and guarantees to keep our production running throughout.”

• “The design of the P2020 tablet press is exquisite from By-Health’s perspective. It keeps output stable at 360 000 tablets per hour. The footprint of the press is only 1 370mm × 1 620mm × 2 073mm, while its weight is an acceptable 4 800kg. It is easy to operate and leaves sufficient space within our compression room. Our plant is visited by tourists from all over the world as a key link in the transparent factory travelling project. Thanks to its high-end German industrial design, visitors enjoy the simple and elegant appearance of Fette Compacting’s tablet press.”

• “The original design and control software of the P2020 and P3030 tablet presses are developed by Fette Compacting Germany and the crucial core components (such as the turret, press roller, encoder, motor, etc.) are also imported from Germany. As a result, the mechanical parts are precise in terms of their dimensions. A cost-saving design has also been considered while hardware and software control are accurate. There is no obvious leakage of yellow powder when operating Fette Compacting’s P Series tablet presses and the yield is over 99%.”

• “The Fette Compacting P Series tablet compacting machines work well for the application, even over the long term and with high compression forces, thanks to their excellent mechanical design and quality. The product scrap rate is very low, which has resulted in an immense reduction in production costs.”

Members of the public viewing By-Health’s transparent factory

A strategic partner for upgrades

Since purchasing its first tablet press in 2009, By-Health went on to purchase 11 tablet compacting machines from Fette Compacting China, including P3030 double-sided presses and a 102i lab machine imported from Germany. This provided full substantiation of the recognition and trust of the customer in the machine supplier.

In recent years, By-Health’s production rate has grown continuously at a rate of 30% to 40% per year. In response to the increasing demand for production, the manufacturer decided to upgrade its transparent factory by transforming it into an intelligent factory, setting the benchmark for intelligent manufacturing in the industry.

In 2016, By-Health selected Fette Compacting China as its strategic cooperative partner for its upgrades and intelligent factory project. Thereafter, the phase IV intelligent factory started production in 2019.

For this new advanced plant, By-Health selected Fette Compacting’s newest version of the P3030 tablet press as its main production machine, accompanied by a Weightmaster 6.2 with weight loop control function. The compacting machines, linked to the peripheral equipment, are able to realise precise monitoring of tablet weight and automatic feedback, with automated closed control loop. As a result, the Fette Compacting China solutions have become an integral part of the intelligent tablet production of By-Health.

Fette Compacting’s new generation of P series tablet presses with smartly linked peripheral equipment provide a crucial contribution to the operation of By-Health’s intelligent continuous production line.

These tablet presses and ancillary solutions are available in Southern Africa from Reitech SA, the approved agent and reseller of machinery and equipment from Fette Compacting. •

By-Health – www.by-health.com

Fette Compacting – www.fette-compacting.com

Reitech SA – www.reitech.co.za