Aluminum Screw Caps Chocolate Pills Pasta
Today on "how it's made"... Aluminum screw caps-- we'll pop the top off this manufacturing secret. Chocolate-- there's nothing like the taste of sweet success. Pills-- watch as directed. And pasta-- we'll visit a factory that churns out oodles of noodles. Twisting off an aluminum screw cap may lack the style and sophistication of uncorking a fine bottle of wine. But as devices go, these caps are one of the easiest ways to put an airtight seal on a bottle or jar, and the added bonus is that they're entirely recyclable. There are hundreds of everyday objects that are capped. This plant makes 250 million metal screw caps yearly in 12 different sizes. The caps are made from these 11-square-foot sheets of aluminum weighing one pound. Some 3,500 thin aluminum sheets pass through this feeder. They begin by coloring the aluminum sheet with a colored varnish--  a lacquer and an ink. Then 12 minutes of drying is needed. The colored sheets set off on a conveyor for drying. Then designs are produced. The coloring is applied by this varnisher. The aluminum sheets pass through the varnisher one at a time. Here we see the sheet printed. Above are the colors used. They are highly colored inks that adhere well to metal. Suction cups grab the sheets and send them toward the transport system of the punch press. This press will give the caps the required shape. But the caps have to be machined in successive steps by molds, such as this one. The punches first cut the caps. Over 500 caps a minute can be produced. The blades of the punches are made of carbide, a very hard metal that can cut tens of millions of caps. At the exit point of the punch press, the caps are formed, but don't yet have the right dimension. This stretching press performs the last two cold-forming steps so that the tube will have the required length. Now for the second stretching. This achieves the desired diameter. When the cap exits the press, it will finally have the desired dimensions. At this point, the cap now has the required shape. The caps now have to be decorated to the client's requirements. The lateral imprint is made with this silk-screen-type decorator which colors some 100 caps in 60 seconds. The decorator uses an ink specially formulated to adhere to metal. The caps will then dry in a warm-air oven. The dried caps are ejected and fall into a container. This other flexographic type of decorator prints 155 caps a minute. We can clearly see the ink roller, which imprints the side of the caps as they rotate against it in a steady stream. All that's required now is to form the cap and make the cut. The profiling and jointing machine makes the cuts and reliefs on 200 caps per minute. Machining the cap takes but a fraction of a second. They sometimes have to assure the watertightness of a container such as a wine bottle. For this, a polypropylene liner is inserted, which hermetically seals the container. A check is carried out under a light to verify whether the cut has been properly made and the ridges well-formed. At last, the final steps-- this screw-tightening machine hermetically seals the caps onto the bottles. The 250 million screw caps made here each year call for the machining of 1,000 tons of aluminum. Working in a chocolate factory-- talk about a childhood fantasy. Well, "how it's made" is about to take a bite out of one of the all-time great dream jobs. Just beware of the occupational hazards-- stomachache, weight gain, and cavities. These delicious chocolate confections are made from melted chocolate flowing into molds. The master molds are first made of wood or plaster of paris. They are then reproduced as copies in an epoxy material. To allow them to become flexible and give them the desired shape, the sheets of epoxy are first heated to 350 degrees. The epoxy sheet is then placed onto the original molds. The sheet is heated, then lifted off. Suction from a vacuum system makes it adhere perfectly to the shapes of the molds. Here we see the epoxy adhering to the master molds. Still hot and malleable, the plastic has to be cooled. A jet of compressed air effectively lowers its temperature. The mold undergoes a visual inspection to make certain of its quality. And now we move on to the chocolate. This melting unit, whose shell is fed by boiling water, is like a double boiler and melts 1 1/2 tons of chocolate in 12 hours at about 100 degrees. The ready-to-be-filled plastic molds are placed onto a conveyor. Filling is done automatically. Liquid chocolate runs directly into the molds. This particular machine produces 400 hearts a minute. The hearts are filled with a concoction of chocolate, cream, and coffee that has been brewed for several minutes. It takes 20 minutes for the chocolate to set as the molds move along on this 9-level conveyor. Well-hardened, the hearts arrive at the unmolding point. The molds are turned over, and a rod lightly taps them on the bottom to allow the chocolates to fall out without being broken. The chocolates fall out onto a sheet. As soon as they've been emptied, the molds return to the starting point on the line to be newly filled. During their transport on the line, the chocolates complete their cooling and hardening. Now they're going to be prepared for packaging. Packaging depends on customers' preferences. The chocolates can be sold in bulk or placed in boxes. Here, 185 hearts are put into each box. Like the pure chocolate, white chocolate comes in as slabs before melting. Milk chocolate is often delivered in the form of one-inch pastilles. Some chocolates are hollow. They have to be molded in two halves. These chocolate bears need special decorations applied by hand before the pouring of liquid chocolate. This decoration is made of white chocolate with an added colorant. In just one hour, they will make 1,200 bears. They're made by joining two hollow chocolate halves. The assembly is done using a refrigerated rotating machine. This machine turns the molds a full 360 degrees on two axes and vibrates the chocolates to prevent the formation of air bubbles. The chocolates rotate for five minutes before being sent to the cooling conveyor, where they will remain for another 20-minute period. And now they're ready. At this point, the bears are unmolded, and they head off for packaging. Each year, this company processes 550 tons of pure chocolate. Many thousands of products are made here using 400 different molds in a variety of sizes. Now, here's a topic that's easy to swallow-- how drug companies make the pills we take. It's a carefully-monitored process in which quality control is paramount. So stand by-- we're going to give you a taste of your own medicine, or at least what goes into making it. Medications are essential in the treatment of illnesses. It begins by a grinding process where the active ingredient in a tablet or pill is ground and mixed with a binding agent. The quantity of the ingredient needed to be ground is transported to the dryer in this container. Like all the other equipment, this container is made of stainless steel so as not to contaminate the product. The temperature of the dryer and the airflow are programmed with this interface. The granulation has to be dried at around 100 or 120 degrees before being shaped into the desired tablet form. Molding of the pills is done by this press, which crushes the powder. The press exerts a pressure varying between two and five tons. Here's how the molding is done-- the press magazine distributes the powder in molds made of steel disks. Two stampers, one above and the other below, crush the powder and form the pill. Here the press operates at full capacity. It can produce 5,000 pills per minute. Quality testing is carried out on 5 pills every 15 minutes. Their hardness is verified with this apparatus in which jaws crush it with a force varying between . 3 and 3 psi, or pounds per square inch. The pills must now be coated so that they won't crumble. A coating solution made of water and coloring pigments is used. This is the coating unit. It can hold 350 pounds of pills. Three plastic tubes, strategically positioned, will spray the solution onto the pills in motion. The quantity of dry pills to be coated is put into the unit. Then the door of the coating unit is carefully closed. A drum turns inside the unit, tumbling the pills. Then nozzles spray the solution in the form of a mist that quickly dries, preventing the pills from sticking to one another. This spraying operation lasts 40 minutes. Here we can compare pills. On the left are those made only of powder, while on the right are the spray-coated ones. The finished pills move down a chute to enter a counter prior to filling bottles. They are lined up in grooves to make filling easier. The quantity of pills to be placed into bottles is controlled by this automated unit connected to the counter. In this instance, 500 pills are poured into each bottle. This plant also makes capsules where the ingredient is not crushed, but encapsulated in a gelatin casing. The distributor places the two halves of the capsules in the proper position for filling, with the wider half situated above. The top and the bottom portions of the capsule are separated. The lower half is then filled with powder. When well-filled, the two halves of the capsule are joined together. The completed capsules are then ejected from the filling unit. Then, via centrifugal force, they are positioned for the packaging process. The weight of each capsule is verified by this counter. Each capsule must have the precise weight. The final step is packaging. A sheet of transparent pvc is heat-embossed, forming an impression to receive capsules. Then a preglued aluminum foil sheet is adhered to the back side, sealing everything in. This plant turns out millions of pills and capsules every year. Ever since marco polo brought the noodle back from china some 700 years ago, pasta has earned its place on tables around the world. Pasta comes in an array of shapes and sizes, like the diehard pasta lovers who just can't seem to get enough. Pasta is actually chinese in origin. When marco polo returned to venice in 1295 after spending 24 years in the far east, he brought back with him chinese pasta noodles. Pasta became popular so quickly that by the 15th century, it occupied a prime position in italian cooking. In this same era, commercial production began in naples. Italians today favor macaronis and raviolis with garlic and cheese. Pastas are generally made from semolina and water. These silos contain more than 33 tons of semolina, derived from durum wheat. The semolina heads toward the high-speed premixer, where it will be vigorously mixed with water for 5 to 10 seconds. This machine can treat between one and two tons of semolina per hour. The dough is extracted from the premixer and falls into a first-blade mixer open to the air. Then the dough goes into this vacuum-blade mixer. The mix is now ready to go through the brass molds. Here's a spaghetti mold and a mold for mafalda-- very narrow lasagna. Here are molds used to make lined shells... And stars for soups... As well as cresto di gallo. The dough is injected into the mold under pressure. This rotating blade machine cuts some 12,000 rotinis per minute. That's 720,000 per hour. With the dough being still quite fresh, the rotinis are soft. They will dry somewhat on this plate. Now we move to the lasagnas. The dough goes through this brass mold, and the strips of fresh dough, 42 inches long, are placed on these sticks to dry at 150 degrees. They dry vertically so as to retain their nice, flat shape. After drying for 15 hours, the strips are then cut in four-- thus making four strips measuring about 10 inches each. To minimize losses and make cutting the dry lasagna easier, scissors trim the dough pieces into equal lengths on the sticks. The long lasagna-drying process begins. Once dry, the lengths of lasagnas are finally cut. They're now ready for packaging. To make some of the other pastas, the mix has to be worked a bit more in order for it to have the required shape. The dough goes through this roller, which gives it the desired thickness. And now butterflies are formed. This mold cuts 7,500 of them a minute for a total of 450,000 an hour. The sheet of dough is two feet wide. It is produced in a steady stream and goes right to the cutting mold. The butterflies fall onto this conveyor to dry somewhat. Then they head toward the next production step. Certain short pastas, such as these butterflies and fusillis, have to be dried, so they're then put into this full dryer. Coming out of the dryer, the pastas are hard and ready for packaging. Here we see the ever-popular spaghettis being made. As with lasagnas, spaghettis are also dried vertically. Now this automated machine places the spaghettis onto a cutting table and breaks them to the proper length. The spaghettis are now ready for packaging. Exact quantities to be bagged are determined by computer. Then the spaghettis go gently down the chute. The amount of spaghetti going into each bag is transported and emptied out by this moving container. To make filling easier, the spaghettis are properly positioned by this chute. In just one minute, this machine can package 10 8.8-pound bags. Whenever needed, it can handle up to 60 bags a minute. Pastas are a favorite meal the world over. This plant makes over 100 different products and every day uses between 60 and 360 tons, or between 2 and 12 truckloads of semolina made from hard wheat.