Glove Manufacturing

In an increasingly competitive world, manufacturing operations are under scrutiny to ensure final products are more consistent, safer, and of higher quality than ever before. This includes the production of rubber gloves, such as latex or nitrile gloves, for medical use, scientific applications, food service, and more.

Immediate control of all production steps, efficient operational performance, and reliable measurement technology are key factors in achieving glove manufacturing excellence. Care must be taken during chemicals compounding, shaping, treatment, leaching, and packaging to ensure that gloves are of a uniform thickness and resistant to breakage.

Manufacturers must also ensure that cartons and boxes contain correct glove amounts. This helps glove manufacturers meet the needs of healthcare workers, scientists, food handlers, garbage collectors, childcare workers, and anyone else who requires protection from touch contamination in nearly any industry.

During glove manufacturing, a ceramic hand-shaped mold called a former is conveyed through a dipping series at 60 °C. First, the formers are put through an acid and alkali wash followed by rinsing to remove dirt and residues. Then, they go through dipping, in which the first coat of a coagulant solution is applied.

This solution typically consists of calcium nitrate and calcium carbonate or calcium stearate. Calcium nitrate determines the thickness of the latex coating and final glove, while calcium carbonate or stearate serves as a releasing agent to detach the gloves from the formers during the glove-stripping stage. Freshly molded gloves are then leached in hot water to remove residual latex proteins and chemicals.

Gloves are then dried and cured, at which point a vulcanization reaction occurs between the rubber molecules in the latex and added chemicals that make gloves stronger and more elastic. Gloves are treated with either chlorine or a polymer coating to control surface grip characteristics. After drying, gloves are rinsed again to leach out additional latex proteins, and cuffs are beaded or rolled to make them easier to wear.

Finally, finished gloves are stripped from the formers and go through quality control before eventually being packed for shipment. The entire glove manufacturing process cycle takes between 40 and 60 minutes depending on production speed. The process then starts again.

Glove manufacturing is a complex process. Producers must be able to accurately characterize incoming raw materials. They also need to ensure that formulations are accurate so that final products perform as expected. In all areas, safety and regulatory compliance requirements are becoming more stringent, not less. Glove manufacturers must also be looking at solutions that will help them reduce manual operator intervention, improve lab and plant productivity, and increase final product quality.

Equipment that responds to digital control as well as instruments that enhance process automation from the R&D stage through production can help glove manufacturers combat these challenges and respond effectively to market demands. Accurate measurements enabled by easy-to-apply connectivity at both the lab and industrial production levels will not only strengthen your edge as you seek to improve the way gloves are manufactured but also help enhance tracking and tracing across the glove production value chain.

To help you improve productivity and reduce processing costs from goods-in through outbound shipping, we offer accurate weighing solutions, comprehensive analytical solutions, innovative process-control technology, secure data collection, robust production analytics, efficient weight-based logistics and both onsite and remote service options to keep your processes up and running 24/7. We are also ready to help you embrace Industry 4.0 to provide heightened control, accuracy and speed throughout your production process.

Quality control across lab workflows, whether you are working in R&D or in at-line or final product quality control, relies on fast and precise analyses and efficient, reliable data management to assure your products meet specifications. Balances, titrators, pH meters, density meters and refractometers, thermal analysis instrumentation and pipettes from METTLER TOLEDO make strict QC viable.

Enhancing workflows with automation can enable the execution of entire laboratory workflows, such as a series of titration or pH measurements, or carry out single process steps, including dosing,sampling or pipetting. Automated instruments and standardized procedures can help to ensure accurate, repeatable results with consistent metadata. Processes are made more efficient and compliance more effectively supported.

LabX™ laboratory software fully networks your METTLER TOLEDO laboratory instruments to ensure efficient workflows, reduce system complexity, and fulfill regulatory requirements.

METTLER TOLEDO not only offers innovative instruments to facilitate research and development but also indispensable tools to manage the kind of scale-up and multiphase reaction engineering that ensures your glove manufacturing process is reliable and efficient.

Well-regulated polymerization reactions yield molecules that are well-characterized with respect to composition, molecular weight, molecular weight distribution, and structural and physical properties. A thorough understanding of these elements in chemical R&D ensures that a synthesized polymer is fit-for-purpose.

To achieve this, the synthetic process and its reaction parameters must be understood and carefully controlled. Process Analytical Technology (PAT) such as inline particle analyzers, in-situ spectroscopy and reaction calorimeters can provide critical insights into how processes will perform at scale. The resulting “process fingerprints” can inform inline monitoring and troubleshooting to avoid upsets and achieve maximum yield.

Only accurate, repeatable and error-free formulation and compounding processes ensure you achieve desired product properties and performance to ensure customers are happy. METTLER TOLEDO’s automatic batching solutions are designed to optimize workflows and ensure consistent quality for many formulation needs. Interconnectivity and direct communication using weighing with built-in diagnostics delivers real benefits for manufacturers while keeping up with Industry 4.0 developments.

Chemicals being used in production need tailored weighing components. Automated precision weigh modules from METTLER TOLEDO continuously monitor the process. They deliver the necessary reporting tools to ensure your filling process remains in tolerance and show you the right mix of ingredients for success with repeatable adherence to the formulation.

With ISM (Intelligent Sensor Management) technology, your dipping processes can be monitored in real-time for out-of-spec and possible defects. By making this data available directly on your PROFINET and ETHERNET industrial network, integrated predictive maintenance of analytical measurement points on a process control level has become a reality. As a result, processes can be run with less unscheduled downtimes, leading to higher efficiency and more efficient use of your resources.

Whether you are competing in large export markets or supplying local outlets, you will likely need to meet the requirements of legislative or regulatory standards. Your business could also benefit from solutions that increase your competitiveness, improve productivity and reduce product waste.

METTLER TOLEDO Product Inspection solutions ensure manufactured products are more consistent, safer and of higher quality than ever before. Solutions include metal detectors, checkweighers, and x-ray and vision inspection systems.

During the material receiving process, the quality and quantity of raw materials must be traceable, right throughfrom receiving, during storage and production to packaging the product. METTLER TOLEDO helps control the quality and quantity of raw materials and provides full transparency on all material received.

A good water treatment program helps to control water purity, As a leader in stringent water quality measurement, METTLER TOLEDO offers solutions to monitor incoming water and ensure quality specifications are met throughout water treatment systems.

Facility engineers depend on reliable and intelligent information from analytical instrumentation to make quick and informed decisions. Being able to react quickly can prevent contamination which has a significant impact on final water quality.

Inefficient wet gas scrubber operations carry the risk of pollution and equipment corrosion from chlorine gas. Fouling of sensors at the scrubber leads to erroneous measurement results which can even result in loop failure.

Thanks to robust in-line analysis, pH, ORP, and conductivity measurements can be used to monitor scrubbing efficiency to ensure chemical reagents are neither being wasted nor insufficiently fed in heavily contaminated media.