One of the problems in creating the course is designing an experiment that will deliver reproducible results so that the students can generate models from the data. During trialling, we quickly found that the Gamlen R series generated consistent results and allowed control of variables which made the Gamlen R series an ideal tool to teach the important course principles. Experiments were conducted repeatedly over the two consecutive days of the course and were found to generate the same data. To get our course objectives across, it was imperative that we could rely on the experiment to work and the Gamlen D Series PCA gave us that reproducibility. If errors occurred, something had gone wrong in the experiment itself i.e. errors were errors – not random noise in the data. This was important as it supported the material we were teaching.

The Gamlen R series allows you to understand the relationship between the properties of substances, the composition of a formulation and the manufacturing process. Another useful Gamlen R series feature is that it allows determination of tablet hardness across a range of sizes. With this information, the production process can be optimised easily and faster whilst using only small amounts of material.

I find the Gamlen R series very useful for teaching undergraduate students the principles of tablet compression because of its easy operation and favourable size for benchtop placement.

We were impressed with the way the Gamlen R series could simulate a number of conditions that real tablet production involves, without requiring high volumes. For a teaching environment, we need to be able to manufacture small batches, at high frequency and by various different users and this machine has been able to meet these needs.