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Contract Packaging Filling and Capping Machines
Cap Coder designs and builds filling, capping and labelling machines for UK contract packaging businesses that fill other companies’ products under their brands. Every line is specified for the reality of contract work: a changing mix of liquids, containers and closures, short runs alongside long ones, and customers who each arrive with their own specifications, quality expectations and audit requirements.
What Contract Packaging Businesses Need to Specify Before Buying a Filling or Capping Machine
A brand owner buys a filling machine for a product it knows well. A contract packaging business buys filling and capping equipment for products it has not been asked to fill yet. That changes the specification. Flexibility, changeover time and the ability to satisfy several customers’ quality systems at once matter as much as headline speed, and a machine that suits today’s contract can quickly become a constraint when the next one arrives.
Product range and liquid behaviour
- The spread of products the line may need to handle, from thin, free-flowing liquids to creams, gels and viscous products
- Products that foam, string, drip or contain particulates, each of which favours a different filling method
- Compatibility of tubing, seals and contact parts with everything from water-based products to solvents, oils and household chemicals
- Products that are temperature-sensitive or must be kept agitated in the hopper to stay uniform
- Which product types you will turn away, since a machine that tries to fill everything may fill nothing especially well
Customer quality systems and regulation
- Whether your own quality system is certified to ISO 9001, and which additional standards customers expect you to work to
- For cosmetic and personal care products, whether customers require manufacture to ISO 22716 good manufacturing practice
- For food and food supplement work, whether customers expect certification to a BRCGS standard
- Whether any work involves medicinal products, which generally requires a manufacturer’s licence and inspection by the MHRA
- Classification and packaging rules under GB CLP for chemical products, including child-resistant fastenings where required
Changeover, utilisation and throughput
- Target changeover time between products and between customers, measured from last good pack to first good pack
- How cleaning and flushing between products fits into the changeover, particularly where allergens, fragrances or colours are involved
- The balance of short runs and long runs, and the output each needs in units per minute or per shift
- Whether format parts can be stored, identified and fitted quickly by operators without specialist tools
- Whether one flexible line or several dedicated lines will make better use of floor space and labour
Containers, closures and customer-supplied components
- The range of bottle sizes, shapes and materials across your customer base, and how many sets of format parts that implies
- Closure types the capper must handle: screw caps, trigger sprayers, pumps, flip-tops, droppers and child-resistant or tamper-evident caps
- Variation between batches of customer-supplied bottles and caps, and how much tolerance the machine needs to cope with it
- Unstable, oddly shaped or lightweight containers, common in contract packaging, that need extra support through filling and capping
- Labelling and coding requirements that differ from one customer’s artwork to the next
Fill quantity and traceability records
- Meeting the average quantity requirements of the Weights and Measures (Packaged Goods) Regulations 2006 for products sold by volume or weight
- Keeping overfill under control, since giveaway on another company’s product erodes a contract margin that may already be thin
- Batch and lot coding that ties every container back to a customer, a product batch and a production run
- Fill weight, torque and reject records in a form customers and their auditors can review
- Line clearance between jobs, so no product, component or label from one customer reaches another’s packs
Commercial and lifecycle support
- Lead time for the machine, and for additional format parts when a new contract arrives at short notice
- Whether trials can be run on a new customer’s product and containers before you commit to a price
- UK-based service, spare parts and calibration, since downtime on a contract line delays someone else’s product launch
- Operator training that covers changeover and set-up, not just day-to-day running
- A route from semi-automatic filling and capping machines to automated lines as contract packaging volumes grow
Filling and Capping Machines and Processes for Contract Packaging
Cap Coder has manufactured filling, capping and labelling machinery in the UK since 1976. The current range of filling and capping machines, from the Sigma Fill through to the CC1160, is specified for contract packaging businesses that need to change products and containers quickly, satisfy more than one customer’s quality requirements and add capacity without starting again each time a contract changes.
Multi-product filling machines
Piston, volumetric and peristaltic filling heads selected against the realistic range of products you expect to run, so one machine can move between thin liquids and heavier creams or gels without compromising fill accuracy on either.
Format parts built for fast changeover
Change parts designed to be identified, swapped and set by operators, with a set produced for each container and closure combination, so a change between customers is a planned routine rather than an engineering job.
Capping machines for mixed closures
The CC570 semi-automatic inline capper applies consistent torque at up to 35 bottles per minute across the screw caps, triggers and pumps a contract packer sees from week to week. Quick-release tooling brings format changes down to around five minutes, and Zone 1 or Zone 2 ATEX builds are available for solvent-based or flammable products.
Torque transducers for customer-ready records
An independently calibrated, UKAS-traceable torque transducer on the MK VI capping head records application and release torque to within 0.1% resolution. Values show live on the HMI and export as CSV, XML or a US Digital-compliant file, with release testing set at one closure in every 10, 20 or 50. Closures outside tolerance are rejected or flagged, giving you a closure record to hand straight to the customer whose product you have packed.
Fill accuracy that protects contract margins
Filling systems set up to hold tight fill tolerances, so you can meet average quantity rules without building in generous overfill, and keep giveaway on customers’ products to a level your pricing can absorb.
Capacity that grows with your contracts
Semi-automatic machines that earn their keep on short runs today, specified so they can later be joined by, or upgraded into, automatic lines as larger contracts are won, without abandoning the format parts already built for existing customers.
Filling and Capping Machines Built to UK and EU Safety Standards
On a contract packaging line, operators of filling and capping machines change parts, products and settings far more often than on a dedicated line, so the machine has to stay safe through every changeover as well as during production. Each Cap Coder machine is designed and built to the Machinery Directive (2006/42/EC) and the UK Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008, and leaves the factory CE marked with a Declaration of Conformity. Safety is decided at the design stage, where a hazard can be removed altogether, rather than added once the machine is built.
CE Marked Filling and Capping Machines
CE marking and a Declaration of Conformity come with every machine, backed by a technical construction file that is retained throughout its working life.
Risk Assessment on Every Build
Every build goes through a formal risk assessment, which also considers the changeover and cleaning tasks that contract operators carry out more frequently than most.
Machine Guarding, Interlocks & Light Curtains
Guarding and interlocks are designed around the real hazards of your process, with light curtains or safety scanners specified where open access is needed for frequent format changes.
Safety-Rated Emergency Stop Circuits
Emergency stop and interlock circuits are engineered to a defined performance level, giving a predictable response every time a guard is opened or a stop is pressed.
Declaration of Conformity & Full Documentation
Each machine is supplied with its Declaration of Conformity, user manual, electrical and mechanical drawings and maintenance guidance, supporting safe use and inspection under PUWER.
Built Around Your Operators
Clear HMIs, recipe recall for repeat jobs and easy access to change parts help contract packaging operators who move between products and customers set filling and capping machines up correctly and safely each time.
EU/UK Standards
Design work references harmonised EU/UK standards, among them EN ISO 12100 for risk assessment and risk reduction, EN ISO 13849 for the safety-related parts of control systems and EN 60204-1 for the electrical equipment of machines. Each machine’s technical file and Declaration of Conformity list the standards applied to that build.
Contract Packaging FAQs
GENERAL ANSWER
Rarely all of them. A piston filler suits creams and viscous products, a volumetric or peristaltic system suits thinner liquids, and some products need specialist handling. Most contract packers settle on a filling method that covers the bulk of their work and accept that some products need a different machine or a different partner.
CAP CODER’S APPROACH
We look at your current and expected product mix and recommend the filling method, or combination of heads, that covers the largest share of it accurately, and tell you plainly which products it will not suit.
GENERAL ANSWER
Semi-automatic machines suit short runs, frequent changeovers and uncertain future work, since they cost less and change over quickly. Automatic lines pay back when a contract brings long, predictable runs. Many contract packaging businesses run both semi-automatic and automatic filling and capping machines, and allocate jobs between them.
CAP CODER’S APPROACH
We size the first investment to the work you have, and specify it so format parts and settings carry forward when an automatic line is added for larger contracts.
CAP CODER’S APPROACH
Machines are designed with reference to harmonised standards such as EN ISO 12100 for risk assessment, EN ISO 13849 for safety-related control systems and EN 60204-1 for electrical equipment, alongside the essential health and safety requirements of the Machinery Directive.
GENERAL ANSWER
It depends on how much changes: a new cap size on the same bottle is quick, while a new product, container and closure together means cleaning, format parts and set-up. Measuring from last good pack to first good pack shows where the time really goes.
CAP CODER’S APPROACH
Changeover targets are agreed at specification stage, and format parts and tooling are designed to meet them. On the CC570 capper, quick-release tooling brings a format change down to around five minutes.
CAP CODER’S APPROACH
PUWER duties sit with you as the employer, and we support them by supplying the manual, drawings and maintenance guidance needed to use, inspect and maintain each machine safely, including through changeovers.
Specifying a Contract Packaging Filling or Capping Line?
Share your product mix, containers, closures and customers’ quality requirements, and Cap Coder’s engineering team will work through the specification for your contract packaging filling and capping line with you before quoting.
Ready to Boost your Productivity?
Get in touch today and one of our friendly sales engineers will be in contact shortly.