While Drum Filling and Emptying might seem like simple tasks at first glance, they come with their own set of challenges that can easily go unnoticed. Small mistakes, like inaccurate fill levels, spillage, or improper handling of viscous materials, can quickly lead to wasted product, safety hazards, and inefficient operations. If not addressed, these issues can result in costly downtime and increased operational expenses.
In today’s blog, we’ll highlight five common mistakes that many manufacturers make during their Drum Handling processes. From ensuring proper ergonomics to preventing expose to hazardous materials, we’ll discuss the critical areas where the right equipment can make a significant difference. By understanding these mistakes and implementing the right solutions, you’ll be able to optimise both productivity and safety into your operations.
5 Mistakes that can happen When Filling or Emptying Drums and their fixes
❌ The Mistake:
One of the most common issues in Drum Filling and Emptying is spillage. Whether from overfills, improper seals, or poorly designed connections, spillage results in product waste, unsafe working conditions, and often costly clean-ups. This problem is especially prevalent in industries dealing with expensive or hazardous materials.
✅ The Fix:
Our Drum Filling Heads can be equipped with an Extended Lance to accommodate deeper or non-standard containers, allowing for full reach and controlled, splash-free filling from the bottom up. This not only reduces turbulence and foaming, but also helps ensure a cleaner, more accurate fill, minimising waste and improving overall efficiency.
❌ The Mistake:
Open or poorly controlled Drum Filling and Emptying processes can expose operators to hazardous vapours, aggressive chemicals, or sensitive materials. This not only poses serious health and safety risks but can also compromise product integrity, especially in industries like pharmaceuticals, food, or chemicals where contamination control is critical.
✅ The Fix:
To ensure a secure, leak-free process, we offer flanged, threaded, and tri-clamp connections to suit a wide range of Drum Designs. For IBCs, custom adaptors provide a snug, gas-tight fit to prevent the escape of hazardous materials. These flexible connection options help maintain a closed system, protecting both operators and product integrity.
❌ The Mistake:
Inaccurate filling, whether overfilling or underfilling, can lead to compliance issues, wasted product, and inconsistent batching. Manual monitoring or relying on visual checks often results in human error and costly rework.
✅ The Fix:
Fitting your Drum Filling System with an Endress+Hauser Liquiphant Proximity Switch Overfill Sensor provides a highly accurate, automated way to detect when the correct fill level is reached. This eliminates guess work, ensures consistent drum volumes, and helps prevent both overfill and underfill errors, making your process more reliable, efficient, and complaint.
❌ The Mistake:
Poor ergonomics during Drum Filling and Emptying can lead to strain, fatigue, and long-term injury, especially when operators manually positioning equipment or working in awkward postures. Over time, this impacts both safety and productivity on the operations floor.
✅ The Fix:
Our Drum Filling and Emptying Heads can as standard with a hand wheel, allowing for smooth, controlled manoeuvrability during operation. For setups using an extended lance, approached the drum from above offers a more ergonomic angle for insertion. In cases where drum access is more challenging, a bungee/lifting mechanism can also be incorporated to reduced physical effort.
❌ The Mistake:
Trying to empty thick, viscous products like oils, adhesives, or resins without first heating them can result in slow, incomplete flow and significant residual product left behind. This not only wastes valuable material but also makes the process inefficient and more labour-intensive.
✅ The Fix:
Incorporating steam heating into the Drum Filling and Emptying process helps reduce the viscosity of thick materials, allowing them to flow more easily. By using steam-heated drum heads or jackets, the product is brought to an optimal temperature, facilitating faster, more efficient emptying and reducing material loss. This ensures better product recovery, reduces operator intervention, and improves overall process efficiency.
Avoiding these common mistakes doesn’t just protect your product and your people, it also improves efficiency, reduces waster, and ensures your process runs exactly as it should. At the heart of this is having the right equipment, designed for the specific challenges of your operation.
That’s why we specialise in bespoke, made-to-order Drum Filling and Emptying Heads, tailored to suit your containers, products, and process needs. Whether it’s heating for viscous media, ergonomic handling, or precision level control, we build solutions that fit, not force, you to adapt.
Tel : +44 (0) 1763 248650
Email : sales@ewfm.co.uk
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