“We were impressed not only with Olmec’s vision expertise which allowed them to come up with an innovative solution to the inspection challenge, but also their understanding of how to integrate the system into our machine.”

Andy Long
Director Marchesini

The CHALLENGE

Patient safety is of paramount importance in the pharmaceutical industry and if this in any way compromised, e.g. where a product reaches a customer incorrectly coded or without a code at all, companies face the threat of product recall. This can seriously damage a company’s brand, reputation and ultimately customer confidence.  Recent examples of MHRA recall include ‘error on carton,’ ‘additional lot number identified by the manufacturer,’ ‘incorrectly labelled,’ ‘batch distributed in the UK recalled because it is labelled for the Portuguese market,’ and ‘incorrect carton barcode identifies the product as 250mg tablets instead of 50mg.’

Our customers require vision inspection systems to remove the possibility of packaging errors and ensure product integrity.

OUR SOLUTION

Vision systems which monitor, regulate, check, analyse, sort and classify with high precision thereby addressing all potential recall issues. Our solutions can be tailored to inspect during manufacturing and packaging processes; integrating with ancillary equipment such as conveyors for product rejection; or provided as stand-alone inspections to check the labels and codes of the final product. With inspection to pharmaceutical standards, our systems are easily transferable to other industrial sectors.

WHERE TO NEXT?

Vision inspection enables manufacturers to adhere to specific industry standards such as 21 CFR Part II but is increasingly becoming an essential quality tool in the pharmaceutical industry at large. Clearly an important component in realising the Falsified Medicines Directive, (See Serialisation page) code reading will provide the required traceability throughout the pharmaceutical manufacturing cycle, but FMD in itself won’t prevent the possibility of packaging errors, so additional inspections will continue to be of critical importance.