Blister Pack Marking and Inspection System

The Challenge

The client needed to significantly reduce the amount of stock of packaging held (and the associated costs), while simultaneously ensuring accuracy in the products being supplied to market. Before the AIS solution was introduced several cartons with pre-printed information for various markets with various languages were held. This resulted in surplus stock being held with the associated costs of storing that. In addition, the stock had to be closely and constantly managed.

AIS Solution

There were 3 different product shapes with 3 custom solutions. All 3 solutions incorporated the same hardware but in a different configuration. As is very common with most of our projects, there were 3 aspects PRINT, APPLY and INSPECT.

• Printing; Hardware used – Ice Zodiac 300 dpi thermal transfer over-printer.
• Label Application; Hardware used – Herma 400 label applicator, position tolerance +/-1mm. Machines incorporate product gappers, product orientation devices, rejection systems.
• Vision Inspection; Hardware used – Datalogic MX-E processor with GigE cameras and ring lighting system.

Tools used:

• Pattern Match (language detection)
• Blemish check (label quality)
• Measurement (Text position on label and label position on product).

On each system we have two separate inspection points for the labels — to inspect print quality on label before it’s applied and another to inspect the label placement on the product.

The Results

With the new AIS system in place there is now a reduction of packaging being stored and managed; there is now just one product packaging type for an array of languages. This means a greatly reduced lead time and a faster route to market, as well as a significant reduction in costs for storing/managing surplus packaging. This reduction in packaging along with the assurance of the vision inspection system were key project goals for each of these systems to Print, Apply and Inspect.