Harpak-ULMA Supports COVID-19 Manufacturing Initiatives

Harpak-ULMA, an industry-leading packaging solutions provider, announced it is working with multiple medical device manufacturers commissioned to supply high volume syringe supplies as part of BARDA’s rapidly expanding COVID-19 Medical Countermeasure Portfolio. 

The US Government’s Operation Warp Speed has been tasked with increasing domestic production capacity of safety needles and syringes. Meeting projected COVID-19 surge demand means these producers must rapidly scale supply inventories far in excess of routine healthcare consumption levels. Harpak-ULMA’s thermoforming platforms, robotic loaders and case packing automation are ideal for urgent, time-sensitive programs such as Operation Warp Speed that demand swift deployment, maximum scalability and extreme throughput.  The company was already deploying its solutions to support COVID testing kits (swabs, vials, etc.)

Harpak-ULMA thermoforming and flow-wrapping platforms offer the highest throughput available, employ a variety of tooling to maximize flexibility, and utilize a modular design that allows rapid component substitution to meet unique configuration requests. Harpak-ULMA’s end-to-end solutions incorporate both high-speed autoloading and secondary packaging automation, a key consideration for commissioning a high-speed medical packaging line in the shortest possible time frame. 

Human productivity is another consideration, impacting both scalability and time to market. Even in highly automated environments, accelerated learning curves for operators and maintenance teams have a direct impact on meeting such aggressive throughput expectations. Harpak-ULMA’s recently announced Augmented Reality capabilities, which result in rapid and quantifiable improvement in staff work instructions execution, was a key selection consideration for one of the multiple producers involved in the initiative. 

The company’s AR capabilities are founded in Rockwell Automations’ Allen Bradley (AB) automation controls and PTC’s Vuforia suite.  Employing AB controls helps to assure widespread compatibility with many producers’ corporate IT standards, as well as ubiquitous parts and service availability–both key to rapid adoption and scalability.