How can companies improve their blister packaging lines?

Increase a blister line’s productivity and what happens? The profitability of the line increases. It seems simply enough, so why haven’t more companies unlocked the hidden potential of their blister lines? It could be due in part to the difficulty in pin pointing where exactly improvements can be made.

Whether a blister line packages tablets, capsules or medical devices, upgrading line controls and adding inspections at specific stages of blister packaging will reduce wasteful, inefficient line processes such as:

1. downtimes
2. rejects
3. rework
4. QA sampling.

So, what are these “critical” line controls and inspections, and where should they be added?

Forming

1. Add pin hole detection on the forming material to ensure detection of leakage sources prior to filling.


*reduces QA sampling


2. Add overheat foil detection via monitoring of forming time to ensure correctly formed material.


*reduces QA sampling


3. Add extensive tracking to ensure detection and complete tracking of spliced forming material to the ejection station.


*reduces rejects, rework and QA sampling

Filling

1. Disable filling device when defective forming material is at the filling station.


*reduces rework (deblistering)


2. Install the latest vision inspection technology for more precise and efficient inspection of products (product verification, component count, color identification, etc.) prior to sealing. This vision technology should also include a precise laser sensor just prior to lidding to detect out of cavity material (incorrect placement of product or presence of foreign material) so that sealing problems will be avoided.


*reduces downtime, rejects and rework

Sealing

1. Set up synchronization between forming material and lidding material to ensure proper placement of lidding over forming material.


*reduces downtime, rejects and rework


2. Set up synchronization between forming material and sealing die to ensure detection of leakage sources. This will also reduce the likelihood of product damaging during sealing, which in turn will reduce maintenance on sealing die.


*reduces downtime and rework


3. Install the latest vision inspection technology to verify printed information on lidding (OCV for human readable information and bar code grading for bar codes).


*reduces rejects, rework and QA sampling


4. Add lidding material tracking to ensure detection and complete tracking of spliced lidding.


*reduces rejects, rework and QA sampling

Outfeed

1. Implement individual blister package ejection to ensure accurate ejection of “bad” products originating from any possible die-cut layout.


*reduces rework

Cartoning

1. Install the latest vision inspection technology to verify lot number, expiration date, carton i.d., leaflet presence, component count, blister wallet, bar code on carton, serialized code on carton, RFID on carton and etc.


*reduces rejects, rework and QA sampling

Some companies may not see the significance of applying these controls and inspections or they simply don’t know where to start. In any event, by not adding them, a line’s true potential won’t be reached, and it will continue to generate waste and be less efficient than it should be. It is that simple.