How to Scale Your Vape Cart Manufacturing Business

Filling a single vape cartridge is pretty easy with a syringe. Filling 10,000 vapes in a day, and things become much more complicated. When it comes to scaling production from craft scale to medium scale to industrial scale, the processes and equipment needed largely vary from one production operation to another.

This article addresses the equipment needed for filling cannabis vape carts (D9, D8, live resin, rosin, etc.) with respect to the scale and size of output and what type of filling and support equipment is needed for each stage of production. We’ll cover the cost and equipment associated with each style of filling, efficiency breakpoints, explanations of the pros and cons for each method, as well as human resource and initial startup costs.

Vape Filling Production Bottlenecks
Craft Scale (Hand Filling)
Mid scale (tray style filling)
Industrial Scale (Fully Automated)
Inventory turnover time

Vape Filling Production Bottlenecks

Vape filling is not just about filling a vape. The entire process involves up to 10 dependent processes, before and after, that can take up significant time and exacerbate the vape filling process. Some of the major process below are directly related to vape filling, and as production grows each of these can halt the cart filling process.

Unpackaging – a step that is often overlooked at small and mid-volume vape filling operations. Unpackaging can take up significant time in larger volumes

Warming / Mixing Resin – easy at small volumes, but is very challenging at large-scale and time consuming without the right equipment

Vape Filling – is the central bottleneck of the cart filling and capping processes

Vape Cleaning – “spider webbing” and small drips are common place in the vape filling process and need to cleaned off carts

Packaging – the final bottleneck of the vape filling process. Packaging can be one of the most laborious steps, depending on the type of Child-Resistant Packaging (CRP) packaging chosen.

Material Reclamation & Cleaning – Large scale operations have significant glassware and cleaning requirements

Craft Scale (Hand Filling)

Craft Scale (Hand Filling)
Efficient Output	Up to 1000 units / week
Pros	No equipment needed, virtually no startup cost, no skilled labor
Cons	Extremely labor intensive Slowest in production speed High product transfer loss usually around ~ 10-20% No fill line uniformity, inaccurate weights, increased likelihood of cart leaks
Equipment	Polypropylene syringes with Teflon needles ~ $200 Blow dryer or heat gun ~ $50-200 Arbor press ~ $100
Production Bottleneck	Cart filling step – cart filling bottlenecks all subsequent processes

Note: Warming 200-400 grams of resin can be performed in a sink with hot water.

Mid scale (tray style filling)

Mid Scale (Tray Style Filling)
Efficient Output	Up to 5000 units / week
Pros	Partially Automated vape filling
Cons	Potential for cart leaks Gradation of fill lines Trained operator required
Equipment	XYZ tray style filler ~ $25-80K Water bath or warming oven ~ $500 – $4K Arbor press or cart press ~ $100 – $5K Vacuum Oven ~ 3K Overhead stirrer ~ 1K
Production Bottlenecks	Cart filling, cart capping and packaging steps – depending on equipment chosen any of these could bottleneck the production

Note: Due to large jars more material to process, efficient heating of resin is required

Industrial Scale (Fully Automated)

Industrial Scale (Fully Automated)
Efficient output	Up to 100,000 units/week
Pros	Fully automated cart filling & capping, weight & fill line control
Cons	equipment cost, trained operator required
Equipment	X4 cart filling & capping system – $125K or 4k/month lease Warming Oven(s) – $4K Vacuum Oven(s) – $8K Overhead stirrer – 1K Ultrasonic jar cleaner – 10K
Production Bottlenecks	Warming resin, packaging, labeling

Note: Multiple ovens are required to warm resin due to large jars and more resin to process, system like the X4 automated cart filler can fill faster than than the time it takes to warm a kilogram of resin.

Inventory turnover time

Inventory turnover time is the primary metric that governs production efficiency for a company. This number captures how quickly inventory can be ready for turned over which takes into account manufacturing process and bottlenecks.

Most cannabis companies working producing based on orders so here is average turnover metrics on an order of 5000 cartridges using 1 worker

Hand filling – 2 weeks
Tray based cart filler – 1 week
Fully Automated filler – 1 day

Should inventory turnover be high in cannabis manufacturing?
Yes in fact all cannabis goods including vape pens are perishable products, it is generally a good idea to have a highest turnover ratio and turn over time meaning you are cycling through products quickly on a monthly basis.