In the pharmaceutical sector, automated manufacturers and laboratories must ensure the compliance of healthcare products with global safety and traceability standards. The industrial vision systems from Cognex that Cira integrates provide an effective and cost-efficient solution for all these stakeholders to optimally automate their production processes and enhance the overall equipment efficiency (OEE).
Cognex vision tools are beneficial for three types of applications: handling sensitive materials and products, quality control of products, and inspection of packaging. Vision systems optimize sorting processes, position controls, product tracking, and robot guidance. For example, industrial vision systems detect defects and ensure the integrity and sterility of packaging through fast, comprehensive, and reproducible inspection of healthcare products, even in cases of contrast and appearance variations or changes in part size. Tamper-evident seals are also inspected; those with incorrect edges or height are promptly rejected, reducing the risk of product recalls. Deploying 3D solutions throughout the process ensures the perfect uniformity of the final packaging.
It is possible to go even further with Deep Learning solutions that quickly and efficiently identify foreign bodies, empty seals, contaminations, deformed or torn labels, as well as other aesthetic defects that could compromise the integrity of the packaging. Meanwhile, 1D and 2D barcode readers are capable of reading labels on a wide variety of surfaces (curved, reflective, or flexible). Easy to integrate, adaptable, and robust, these vision systems surpass the capabilities of traditional vision solutions to provide comprehensive inspection quality.
Because their responsibility is paramount, manufacturers of products and medical devices destined for hospitals must implement a particularly thorough quality control. That's why they turn to Cognex vision solutions, which enable them to optimize the quality of their production and the efficiency of their production, packaging, and supply chains.
To ensure optimal traceability of pharmaceutical products, UDI (Unique Device Identification) markings are applied to the packaging. However, printing errors can occur. That's why employing OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technologies to verify the proper printing of labels can be recommended. Regardless of the printing method used (thermal transfer or direct marking on a part), vision solutions equipped with this technology can assess the quality of codes (DPM or otherwise) and ensure the correct labeling of products. Code imaging readers, relying on patented reading algorithms, then decipher the codes, even on high-speed lines, and ensure that medical devices of all sizes are easily identifiable and located in case of a product recall.