Case Studies

  Vision inspection for pharmaceutical packaging

A world-leading pharmaceutical company had a requirement for a new test system to evaluate different types of drug packaging. Based around the customer's proprietary pressure/vacuum cycling technology, PTP developed a control system with camera inspection and associated data acquisition & analysis software. One of the key design challenges for this project was to minimise the time between when the picture should be taken and when it is actually taken. Validation of the inspection process was also an important consideration. Additionally the control system needed to:

  • calibrate all sensors on the rig
  • pressurise/depressurise the chamber in fixed steps over a definite time period.
  • schedule pictures to be taken when the pressure passes a threshold, either rising or falling
  • schedule pictures to be taken at a given time
  • analyse and display the data captured in Real Time

 Barcode Inspection System for Medical Device packaging line

A leading pharmaceutical company manufactures medical devices in Japan which need to be reconfigured before they can be sold in the European market. This was being done manually and there had been a small, but potentially serious, number of instances where the devices had been shipped out without the correct configuration. PTP developed and installed a barcode inspection system that would check, via an SQL database, that the devices had been configured correctly and then perform an extra check at the final packaging stage. The application would also print out and log the serial numbers - thus providing full traceability for the process. The software was written in National Instruments' LabWindows/CVI and communicated with two high speed, industry-standard barcode readers. A relay module was also used to allow the application to stop the line when necessary and signal a failure to the other equipment on the line. Once the fault has been identified and the device removed from the packaging line, the operator is then able to re-start the complete line in a simple and controlled manner.

 

Other case studies to be added soon!