ADDE

ASTRAZENECA SYDNEY PRODUCTION LINE

MANY FINGERS MAKE LIGHT WORK

A specialist in the design of industrial automation solutions, Andrew Donald Design Engineering or ADDE as they are often referred to as, offer extensive experience across a range of industries including pharmaceuticals, food, automotive, general manufacturing and material handling, delivering tailored manufacturing solutions to unique customer requirements.

Operating out of expansive development facilities in Bayswater, ADDE’s design team draws on a combination of in-house and local manufacturing expertise through their network of technical partners to deliver tailored automation solutions, including APS Innovations for all their injection-moulded plastic analysis and manufacturing needs.

Complex geometry plastic fingers are painstakingly analysed and precision moulded to handle the pharmaceutical ampoules filling

Complex geometry plastic fingers are painstakingly analysed and precision moulded to handle the pharmaceutical ampoules filling

Precision and repeatability are critical to the smooth, rapid and reliable operation of automated equipment such as pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca’s Sydney based production facilities, each line is capable of producing over 70 million units per year of Pulmicort Respules, an asthma medicine destined for overseas markets such as China.

With an investment of over $100 million over the last 5 years, and three new lines being installed by Q3 2020 to increase production by 210 million units per year, it is predicted that that by 2025, AstraZeneca’s site will be producing over one billion respules.

Produced from scratch, each unique production line takes a team of 36 people over 12mths to build, and utilises 1,000’s of plastic fingers.

Produced from scratch, each unique production line takes a team of 36 people over 12mths to build, and utilises 1,000’s of plastic fingers.

With the complex geometry of the fingers being dictated by necessary design constraints, it was the task of APS to analyse the part design and ensure that the 1,000’s of fingers required for each production line could be manufactured accurately and consistently.

“ADDE’s design team turn to APS Innovations for all their injection-moulded plastic analysis and manufacturing needs as part of delivering their unique customer-tailored automation solutions.”

  • injection moulding flow analysis

  • plastics materials selection

  • tooling cooling analysis

  • part warpage/distortion analysis

  • tooling program management

  • ongoing supply of plastic moulded components

Each production line has a capacity of over 70 million units per year, exported overseas to help treat China’s estimated 30 million asthma sufferers.

Each production line has a capacity of over 70 million units per year, exported overseas to help treat China’s estimated 30 million asthma sufferers.

With such high moulding consistency being required, and the nature of the job being one-off rather than ongoing, APS Innovations were the natural choice over more traditional moulders to supply the finished product direct to ADDE, for assembly and testing prior to delivery and commissioning.