The Value of Artificial Intelligence Inspection for Pharmaceutical...
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The Value of Artificial Intelligence Inspection for Pharmaceutical Packaging

Pharma Tech Outlook | Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Automatic artificial intelligence (AI) inspection devices have recently replaced human inspectors on many packing lines. These technologies can detect flaws in the final product or packaging early in the manufacturing process, improving the effectiveness of drug manufacturing.

FREMONT, CA: What is the relationship between pills, defective products, and pharmaceutical packaging? All three topics are crucial to providing high-quality healthcare. Defective pills or capsules can contribute to wasteful packaging costs when pharma companies reject them.

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Let's examine how pharma companies can prevent these issues from harming businesses.

The high cost of defective pills or capsules

Defects in pharmaceutical products are any flaws in the pill's casing. This may include a broken seal or a chip on the capsule's side. These defects can result in various issues, but the two most common are the medication itself and the packaging.

Medication Defects: Defects in pills or capsules directly affect their contents. A damaged medication or a dosage error due to missing or broken pills can cause problems for patients who rely on these medications to function properly.

Additionally, broken seals on solid oral dosage forms can expose the pill's contents to outside contaminants. This diminishes the medication's efficacy and could result in bacterial contamination and pose grave health risks to patients.

Packaging Defects: Defective products can contaminate pharmaceutical packaging if they cause the medication to leak out and contaminate the packaging and the remaining products in the package. This generates additional waste and places patients at risk for severe health complications.

For manufacturers, compromised containers can pose a financial risk. High scrap rates should be avoided in any environment of manufacturing. Pharmaceutical packaging defects can result in significant financial losses for manufacturers in terms of lost materials (products and packages) and time spent identifying and rectifying the defect.

How can packaging companies for pharmaceuticals avoid defects?

Pharmaceutical companies must take precautions during manufacturing and packaging to prevent pill or capsule defects. This includes employing a vigilant workforce and following standard operating procedures. By taking these steps, companies can ensure that solid oral dosage forms are produced correctly and without defects.

Numerous packaging lines employ machine vision or, more recently, automated artificial intelligence (AI) inspection systems to detect flaws. These systems can detect product or packaging flaws early in the manufacturing process, thereby increasing the overall productivity of pharmaceutical production.

The pharmaceutical industry must have a system for handling defective products. This includes implementing protocols for identifying and resolving errors as quickly as possible. By doing so, pharmaceutical companies can reduce the impact of faulty products on their packaging lines and ensure that patients have access to safe and effective medications.

AI pill inspection systems can assist pharmaceutical companies in preventing defects. Compared to conventional image processing techniques, AI techniques such as deep learning can be advantageous for images with changing environmental conditions. For instance, AI is generally resilient to varying lighting intensities, whereas machine vision will require new programming based on rules. Beyond the technical factors, the following are three reasons to consider AI inspection for packaging lines:

Increased production speeds: AI pill inspection can increase the rate at which solid oral doses travel through packaging lines. This could significantly reduce manufacturing time and the number of defective pills.

Better quality control: AI pill inspection can assist pharmaceutical companies in maintaining higher quality standards for pill packaging. Automated systems can identify defects more quickly than humans, preventing the packaging of defective pills before they are identified as errors. This reduces manufacturing costs by reducing the number of rejects.

More precise product counts: AI inspection can assist manufacturers in maintaining the correct number of counts in each container by keeping track of pill orientations and positions within a bottle or package. This ensures consistency across and within each package, resulting in more effective pharmaceutical packaging.

Manufacturers should ensure the efficacy of the pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging processes. Pharmaceutical companies can minimize the risk of defects and errors by implementing AI inspection systems and other quality control measures.

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