Storage devices

Details Storage devices Storage devices

1995-08-02

2000-01-11

Chin-Shue, Alvin

Supports: racks

Special article

Article includes elongated portion

A47F 104

Patent

active

060125950

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to various cooperating devices for storing lipped or winged articles, especially cylindrical articles such as syringes.
Many containers for liquids, particularly those made from glass, are, by virtue of their purpose, of such a shape that they are not easily storable and as such many are often broken or damaged during processing--filling, quality control, labelling and packaging for example.
Glass syringes, in particular, suffer from these disadvantages. Furthermore, they also have protruding glass wings which can easily crack under shock, and are often supplied with a needle attached which can bend under pressure.
For sterilisation processes, it has been proposed to secure one or more rows of syringes to stainless steel rail-trays, supporting the wings on the rails. These rail-trays can subsequently be used to support the syringes during filling.
In another conventional technique, glass syringes may be vertically stored and filled whilst resting in a hole and being supported by its wings. Generally, a number of syringes are supported in a matrix of holes in a nest held in a tub formed from plastics material (for example, the Becton-Dickinson SCF system). Once filled with the appropriate liquid, the syringe have to be inspected individually for particulate contamination, which for careful examination necessitates removal of the syringe from the nest.
Syringe bodies may also be stored and removed from nests for operations such as insertion of plungers, labelling and final packing.
Automated removal requires either grasping of the syringe from above by a robot and thereby risking cracking the glass, or pushing of the needle from below and thereby risking damage to the needle. As such it is preferable for this removal and replacement to be carried out manually. As a result of this fragility, on production lines where syringes are filled and packaged it is difficult to achieve a throughput of greater than 6000 syringes per man hour in removing syringes from the nest and just 4000 per man hour in replacing syringes.
As the filling, insertion of the syringe plunger, labelling and packaging processes occur at differing rates either the whole process runs as a single continuous process, running at the rate of the slowest individual procedure, or the syringes must be removed from the tub, processed and then returned to the tub for intermediate storage at every stage in the production of a filled syringe. These different operations may be carried out at different locations of a production facility. All this results in further opportunities for the occurrence of damage to the syringe or needle during transfer. It is therefore preferred to run the whole process as a single continuous procedure. However, this results in a further problem in that whenever an individual procedure comes to a standstill, due to a machine breaking down for example, the whole process is also stopped. Alternatively complex buffer devices, such as spiral racks, are needed to absorb continuous production.
There is a need therefore for the development of a system whereby glass syringes can be conveniently stored and moved from one process to another with a reduced risk of damage thereto, with the system being of low cost (for example by using injection moulding) and requiring a reduced labour involvement.
The present invention is based on the use of a support rack for storage of lipped or winged articles, especially cylindrical articles such as syringes. The support rack comprises a plurality of elongate fingers connected together at one end by a spine member, the fingers thereby defining parallel support channels open at one end. The articles are located in the channels with their lips or wings resting on the elongate fingers.
The support rack itself forms one aspect of this invention.
Generally the fingers extend from one side only of the spine. Therefore the support rack typically has a generally comb-like appearance with the teeth of the comb defining the open-ended channels.
The articles may be placed in the ch

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patent: 5386915 (1995-02-01), Sirhan
patent: 5598924 (1997-02-01), McCann

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