The need for a ‘USER GROUP’ of Companies handling loose solids
The economic benefits offered by continuous processing over batch is driving the pharmaceutical industry to follow the route of food, chemical and mineral industries in adopting this method of production, (1).
The historical mindset of management to employ batch processing is reinforced by the need to change in design methodology from a unit operation to a systems approach and recognise the consequent importance of the physical properties of the bulk material to the handling of the product.
Research and design importance are rightly directed to the constituents and process of production of a suitable product, but it is separately important that the production method is reliable and does not adversely effect the quality of the output. (2).
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This was dramatically illustrated in other Rand reports that highlighted the wide relative inefficiencies of plants handling solids and those handling liquids and gasses. (3).
This discrepancy was attributed to the lack of data relating to relationship between the physical properties of the components and their handling characteristics. Unresolvable segregation issues were also reported as responsible for the failure of a $300,000 pharmaceutical project.
The need for a wider understanding of the handling characteristics of bulk solids is not confined to the pharmaceutical industry, but is virtually universal, (4).
However, whereas there are at least three trade organisations of manufacturers of solids handling equipment in UK alone, (5), there is no organisation that represent the vast number of manufactures that use bulk solids within their production facilities or co-ordinates research in the subject, either at universities or on behalf of industries with common interests.
The paucity of teaching powder technology in the syllabus of many universities does not currently favour a significant change in the level of support available to design improvements.
It is noticeable that, apart from Andrew Jenike’s contribution to hopper design, most advances in equipment design has originated from equipment manufacturers than university research.
The UK Government has currently many others priorities and an early effort in 1959, (6), as part of Harold Wilson’s “White heat of technologies” splurge.
Despite sterling work in bulk technology, the laboratories were sold off to form a car park in a Heseltine economy purge. Government will not give attention to this, so it is up to a major manufacturer to take the lead and support The British Materials Handling Board in the formation of a ‘Bulk Users Association’, which was set up by the Government for these objectives.
