Chapter 178 New Drugs 2
Once the raw materials arrived, Landon and the workers set the drums that they needed for today on the floor.
And those that werent needed, were sent to a small storage room within the department.
After this, Landon began to explain the mixing ratio needed during production.
There were 8 large industrial V-shaped mixers within the Advil production department.
And for each mixer, Landon had specified that they should add 6 drums of this, 2 drums of that and so on.
"Chief Ramsey, please press the large green button on the side of the machine."
'Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr'
The non-stationary part of the machine (V-shaped mixer), started rotating round and round, like.... it spined like those astronauts during a gravity test.
"Can anyone tell me why we chose do this step?" Landon asked.
Some of the workers had been pulled in from the other drug making departments, so they immediately knew why.
"We do it so that the whole powdered mixture can be even" someone answered.
"Correct!!... but what could happen if it's not even or homogenized?"
"The quality will be bad"
"The pill will not be effective"
"The pill might not work"
"It means that we would have bought and used up our raw materials for nothing."
"___"
Landon continued to hold a mini-lecture with them, while they waited for the machine to properly blend and mix the ingredients.
After 15 minutes, the homogeneous mixture was sent to another large tank that acted as a fluidized bed.
This next step was known as Granulation.
Within the tank, air was pumped into the tank from the bottom... and the powdered particles immediately suspended in mid-air, and danced within the funnel shaped tank.
While this was going on, solvents were constantly being spraying on the dancing particles from tiny holes at the mid-section of the tank.
As the spraying and dancing continued, the particules sticked to one another forming lumps.
From there, the lumps were sent to a milling machine.
Within this particular machine, the lumps were passed through several mechanisms that shaped the lumps into tablet sizes.
Of course at this stage although the tablet sizes had been formed, the pill was still somewhat soft.
Hence, the tablets headed towards a large Tablet Pressing device.
This machine could solidify up to 4000 tablets every 5 minutes.
And after 10 minutes, they had successfully created 2 batches of pills... they had made a total of 7119 tablets of Advil.
After this phase, the tablets were sent to a huge coating machine... which could coated the pills to any color that they wanted, based on all the raw material used for producing the coating.
Actually, coating was absolutely necessary for easy swallowing.
Back on earth, some pills will taste like strawberries on the outside, but were bitter on the inside.... this was because of coating, to make children and other people swallow the pills easily.
Even normal pills have unflavored coatings on them... that's why one could only get the real bitterness of a pill, after chewing it.
This coating machine was similar to a drying machine... but the only difference was that holes could release the coating agents.. as well as cool air for drying.
The machine also did small swishes, unlike a drying machine that rotated super fast.
If the machine went with that speed, then the pills would surely break or scatter.
From there, the tablets passed through a polishing machine to give them shine.
When the tablets have been well polished, they were later sent to a massive packaging machine.
The machine had a large assembly line, that could package over 100 plastic pill bottles a minute.
Previously, while the loaders were doing their thing loading the trucks, Landon and the workers had already loaded several empty plastic pill bottles and bottle caps to the machine.
The machine had a feeder for caps, pills and empty pill bottles.
"Chief Ramsey, Please turn the dial to 'Medium Speed' and push the green button" Landon said.
'Chimp! Chimp! Chimp!'
"Wahhh... look!!! It's filling the pills into the machine on it's own!!"
"That's nothing, just wait until you see it close the bottle cap on it's own!!"
"Really? It can do that?"
"Yeah it can!!
I was previou working at the Tylenol department, so I saw it."
"Amazing!!!"
"__"
The workers discussed, as they watched the entire process.
From there, the pill bottles headed towards another assembly line where they would be placed in small cardboard packages.
The box packing was simple....it was red in color, with the words: 'Advil', 'Made in Baymard' and the expiration date on its bottom.
The bottom of the pill bottle also had the expiration date as well.
For the experiration date, Landon estimated bases on when the plant was grown, chemical preservatives added and other minor factors.
Of course drugs usually last for 1 to 3 years.. but Landkn had estimated all the new drugs to last for 8 months mazimum.
But with radio signals coming out, it shouldn't be long before Landon made dating machines.
These sort of machines used Analog signals, sensors and frequency to measure things like acidity, basidity and all other factors that would be used in calculating the right expiration date.
Anyway, after the pills got packaged, they were led on a conveyor belt towards several large brown colored boxes.
And from there, they were to be recounted, sealed and sent down towards the ground floor and sent to the storage room.
.
In fact, the process wasn't hard to follow... the issue was always having the right raw materials... and getting an even mixture.
And of course, one also had go control the airflow within the fluidized beds as well.
Different airflow levels, gave different lump sizes and results.
"Your Majesty, how do I divide the workers up?"Ramsey asked
"Hmm.... there are 274 people in this new department right?"
"Yes your majesty"
"Alright... let's do it like this.
74 people should focus on loading and off-loading, and the rest will be divided evenly between all machines, and the other work posts.
I'll draw a new schedule for all the workers within this department.
Since your the overseer, you should hold a meeting with the employees and speak about your expectations, work schedule and monthly goals.
I'll also bring new secretaries, accountants and auditors that will focus on this new sector only.... so you need to communicate with them at all times.
They will be located on the first floor of building 5, with all the other business related workers.
Oh... and next week, we will start creating another new drug.
So tomorrow morning, I'll give you a list of raw materials that you need to buy from the food and Alchemy industry."
"No problem your majesty."
After Landon was done, he decided to head towards the castle so that he could think more on the system's mission.
The earlier he finished everything, the more missions he would get.
Of course he couldn't produce all the drugs now, since some of the plants weren't particularly available yet.
Are rather, they were available... but their amount was too small for mass production.
That'why he had pushed production of some of some, to spring and early summer.
Sigh... this damn mission was giving him a headache.
Well, at least the people would have drugs to treat their colds, pains, fever, headaches and even toothaches.
This was good.