Vitronic Safety System Helps Keep Patients Safe

Drug packaging is extremely important. If medicines get mixed up, or the wrong label, dosage instruction or code is applied to a product, patients’ safety could be compromised. That’s why pharmaceutical companies use automated inspection systems to check their packaging at various stages of the manufacturing process.

Many drugs are stored in vials, which must be examined for flaws, cracks, fill levels, stopper and sealing cap positioning, codes and labels. Companies often use a multitude of inspection systems to do this, which is time-consuming and expensive.

Wiesbaden-based Vitronic offers VINSPEC, which operates above powered conveyors. As vials flow through the system at throughputs of up to 10 items per second, it inspects and reads sealing caps on all sides. VINSPEC uses sophisticated software to combine different inspection systems: it checks the cap and product colour, controls the flanging relating to quality and colour, monitors the seat of the seal and its crimp depth measurement, as well as verifying codes and labels on the container’s outer surface if required. VINSPEC also detects physical deviations in the vial itself.

VINSPEC uses a sensor head with a camera to produce a high-resolution image of the complete sealing cap, including the lateral circumference. This eliminates the costly mechanical turning of the containers while they pass through the system.

The VINSPEC system is fully Good Automated Manufacturing Practice (GAMP) compliant. It allows pharmaceutical firms to reduce costs and improve manufacturing efficiency while not compromising on safety.

Vitronic demonstrated its VINSPEC vial inspection system at Interpack 2011, which took place last month at the Düsseldorf trade fair centre. Visitors were swarmimg all over the company’s stand over the course of the exhibition, keeping Vitronic’s sales engineers busy with enquiries.