Ishida Europe's smallest multihead weigher is enabling Swiss dental supplies specialist Polydentia SA to accurately weigh and pack dental wedges faster than previous manual weighing had permitted.

Polydentia SA produces a wide range of precision dental products including wedges, posts, matrices, silicon tubes, fixing rings and ID rings, for worldwide export.  For large production runs of its dental wedges, the company selected the Ishida CCW-M-214W-S/005-SS, the smallest multihead weigher in the world.  The wedges, which are only a few mm wide and 11-17mm long and made from maple wood in five different formats, are used by dentists to help carry out reconstruction and restoration work.

The Ishida 'Lilliput' weigher delivers high speeds, excellent accuracy and efficiency levels close to 100%. This enables it to pack the wedges by number as well as by weight. To avoid problems caused by air currents blowing the very small items about during the weighing process, Ishida designed a special protective plexiglass cylinder to completely enclose the weigher.  

The Lilliput is used for runs of over 1000 packs, working at a rate of 1000 weighments per hour, compared with 300 for manual weighing. The weigher provides extra flexibility for Polydentia, for example allowing it to handle sudden, unexpected increases in production orders, and has contributed significantly to the reduction of manual labour, helping to protect the business against low cost competition.

The Ishida weigher was chosen by Polydentia president Mr Schaffner to enable the company to prepare for future growth. He comments that in Itech AG of Rotkreuz, the Ishida distributor in Switzerland and Italy, he has found a trusted partner offering rapid technical assistance and 24-hour spare parts support.