Vitronic sets drug production safety standards.

Safety is crucial in the pharmaceutical industry, not just in the development and testing of new drugs, but throughout the production of existing medicines. It is essential that these are uncontaminated, packaged correctly and appropriately labelled. This ensures that they are safe for end-users. Vicode from Vitronic is a sophisticated camera-based recognition system that verifies batch numbers, dosage directions, expiry dates and safety information on drug containers in automated pharmaceutical production lines. As boxes, blisters and packets flow through the system, Vicode captures photographic images of their labels with high-resolution, line-scan and matrix cameras. It interprets these using OCR (optical character recognition) techniques and computer algorithms.

Unlike traditional laser scanners, the camera-based system reads barcodes, 2D codes and text information. It compares the acquired data with online records to ensure that drugs are labelled correctly and are safe for distribution. The process takes just milliseconds, allowing the system to immediately flag up any discrepancies and halt production if necessary. Vicode checks up to 1000 numbers, characters and symbols per second and achieves a successful read rate of nearly 100%, allowing pharmaceutical production companies to achieve high levels of efficiency.

For checking bottles and bottle caps, Vitronic manufactures a patented 360[degrees] panoramic camera system that operates over production lines. When used with Vicode, the panoramic system verifies codes and characters on bottles and bottle caps at high speed, eliminating the time-consuming process of handling bottles manually. The panoramic camera is also compatible with Vitronic's Vinspec inspection system. It reads codes, characters and symbols in the same way as Vicode, but incorporates sophisticated software that allows it to perform other complex tasks. When using Vinspec and the panoramic system to check bottle caps, it is possible to identify defects such as incorrect crimping and contamination. Vinspec also verifies cap colours that determine a bottle's contents, which prevents drug mix-ups. When used in conjunction with the panoramic camera system, it inspects up to 600 bottles per minute. Drug integrity is essential in the pharmaceutical industry. By using Vitronic's machine vision systems, companies can keep production processes safe and protect end users.

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