Wondering what’s new at Thomas Processing? Join Jim Hahn, VP of global sales and marketing, as we take a virtual tour of our new facility. Read more about what’s new below.
We Moved!
The first thing that’s new at Thomas is that we relocated to a new facility. After more than 50 years of building on innovation in the tablet manufacturing industry at our location in Hoffman Estates, we moved to a new and improved building located at 200 Airport Road in Elgin, Illinois.
Our new building matches our world-class equipment and facilitates an efficient, innovative environment to continue designing and manufacturing cost-effective pharmaceutical machinery for tablet production.
We Joined Forces With IMA
In other news, Brian Casey, owner and son of Thomas Engineering founder Tom Casey, sold Thomas Engineering last year.
The IMA Group, a leader in state-of-the-art processing and packaging equipment, based in Italy, finalized the acquisition in May and rebranded Thomas Engineering to Thomas Processing.
IMA pursued this acquisition with two objectives in mind:
- To grow the Thomas brand
- To grow the ACCELA COTA brand in North America and around the world
Hahn said that although Thomas joined forces with the global pharmaceutical leader less than one year ago, goals are already being met. Thomas employees and executive leaders couldn’t be happier with the partnership, he said.
“With the vast, worldwide presence of IMA and under their leadership, we’re already meeting these objectives,” Hahn said. “We’re really excited.”
Our Owner Retired
While most of what’s new at Thomas is exciting, we received some bittersweet news earlier this year.
Brian Casey retired on Feb. 25, 2022.
The team thanked him for his dedication to the company and wished him well in his retirement, Hahn said.
“On behalf of all our past and present employees and different customers Brian has touched over the last 40 years of running the business, I’d like to thank you for your kindness, generosity, and leadership,” he said. “Best wishes in your retirement.”
We Have Dedicated FAT Areas and a State-of-the-Art Equipment Showroom
The new Thomas facility in Elgin is equipped with large Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) areas and a state-of-the-art showroom featuring our innovative tablet coating systems.
Our brand new testing facility includes six test stations dedicated to FATs .Each bay has electric and compressed air and water controls for extensive testing on new machinery.
A significant part of adjusting to the pandemic was turning the traditional, in-person FAT procedure for tablet coating machinery into a virtual testing process that provides the same quality assurance and supports customer safety. In 2020, Thomas began offering virtual FATs for our customers. We still offer this virtual test option for customers who request it, but we’re slowly returning to standard, in-person FAT procedures.
FLEX 200 Tablet Coating System
Whether you’re in one of our dedicated FAT areas or our state-of-the-art equipment showroom, you can find a variety of high-quality tablet coating systems like Thomas’s FLEX 200.
A tablet coating system equipped with exchangeable drums, our FLEX 200 coating machine is designed with a wide range of industry-leading, high-performance features to give you complete coating uniformity, like external gun positioning.
One of our FLEX 200 systems recently passed a virtual FAT and is being shipped to one of our pharmaceutical customers in China.
ACCELA COTA PRO Tablet Coating System
At our new facility, you can also find Thomas’s ACCELA COTA PRO, a production batch tablet coating system built on the advanced technology of the original ACCELA COTA system that was first introduced in 1969.
ACCELA COTA PRO has game-changing differentiators like its cylindrical (C) drum. Other coaters rely on biconical (B) drum designs. When you compare it with the ACCELA COTA PRO’s B drum, the C drum design matches the same 60-inch diameter, offering a 35% higher capacity with a 700-liter drum and increased throughput.
Currently, one of our ACCELA COTA PRO systems is gearing up for an FAT. Once it passes, it will be shipped to a national pharmaceutical customer in Brazil, just one of the many locations we serve worldwide.
FLEX CTC Tablet Coating System
In our continuous coating trial lab, you can find Thomas’s FLEX CTC Continuous Tablet Coater, a system that extends film coating technology from the typical batch process to a fast and efficient continuous process.
Designed and manufactured in the mid-’90s and one of the first continuous coaters in the industry, we’ve installed hundreds of these systems for customers worldwide.
Our FLEX CTC tablet coating system is available for trials and immediate purchases.
ACCELA CTC 500 Tablet Coating System
In our trial lab, you can also find our newest continuous coating system, the ACCELA CTC 500. Extending the capabilities of the FLEX CTC, our ACCELA CTC 500 is built for pharmaceutical-grade coating applications and eliminates material waste and reprocessing during startup and shutdown. Visit our trial lab today to see our newest machine in action.
We Have a Batch Coating Trial Lab
We have a trial lab at our new facility designed specifically to test continuous coating systems, but our new location is also equipped with a batch coating trial lab where we test batch coating machines like Thomas’s FLEX 500. The test facility has a 10,000 CFM [17,000 m3/hr] air handling unit with electric heating and chilled water dehumidification.
Thanks for Touring Thomas!
Thanks for taking the time to tour our new facility! We hope you enjoyed taking the virtual tour and reading about what’s new here. Contact us today to schedule an in-person visit with us.
