Machine Vision in the Nutraceutical & Pharmaceutical Industries
The Pharma 4.0 Evolution Has Begun
Among the earliest adopters of machine vision, the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical (food containing health-giving additives and having medicinal benefit) industries have leveraged the benefits of machine vision for years not only to ensure product quality and safety but for a wide variety of manufacturing, traceability, packaging, shipping, and data processing applications. With the dawn of Pharma 4.0 and smart, connected technologies, innovations in machine learning, image sensors, and image capture devices are offering these industries new opportunities to ensure product quality, safety, compliance and enhanced efficiencies to reduce costs, increase speed and build consumer trust.
Machine vision is used for a wide variety of inspection applications to ensure quality and traceability for FDA compliance. Vision inspection applications include:
- OCR / OCV
- Serialization Track and Trace
- Cap & Seal
- Empty Glass
- Stopper Position
- Fill (Liquids/Powder/Lyophilization)
- Seal Surface
- E-pedigree Marking
- Components (Stoppers / Caps / Glass)
- Particle
- Final Product (Color, Shape)
- Packaging (Box & Label / Blister Formats)
An important component of Pharma 4.0, digital connectivity creates enhanced levels of transparency and speed. Digitization allows for faster decision-making as well as in-line and in-time control over business, operations and quality. Additionally, sophisticated vision systems have the ability to handle compute-intensive algorithms that enable more reliable date and lot code verification, minimizing liability.
Digitization and innovative machine vision technologies are delivering the speed, accuracy and compliance with legislation that work to not only sharpen one’s competitive edge in this highly competitive industry but to build consumer trust.