Development of an automatic milk standards packaging system

Commercial calibration standards are normally contained in disposable vials. Currently, most calibration standards producers employ primarily manual operations in their production. In this study, an automatic packaging system was developed and tested by the investigators for automatic packaging of milk standards. In this automatic packaging system, the capping, filling, and label printing operations were automated through a programmable logic controller (PLC). The effects of nozzle dimensions, liquid flow rate, and milk fat levels on the liquid foaming and dripping were studied. The testing results showed that the capping mechanism was reliable for long-term operation. With the specially designed filling mechanism, no dripping occurred during operation. The filling accuracy was 40 ± 1 mL, meeting the industrial standard. The capacity of the developed system was 30 to 40 vials per min. With the priming and cleaning process before and after each batch of filling operation, there was no significant difference (P > 0.4) in milk composition among the same batch of samples.