Complete Label Inspection – A Necessity

Within the pharmaceutical industry, information on labels is typically printed in one of two ways:

1. everything is printed on the label in one shot (ie., lot number, expiration date, logo, drug name, dosage and etc.) prior to packaging of the product

1. labels are preprinted with non-varying information, and variable information such as lot number, expiration date, dosage and etc. are printed on the label at a later time.

However, whether the product information is printed via option 1 or option 2, very often all information is not verified prior to packaging of the product. How detrimental can this be for a company? A major pharmaceutical firm just recently had to initiate a five lot product recall because there was a danger that the product’s label may lack product strength and tablet count information.

Very often pharmaceutical product labels contain a wealth of information. There is the the product name, the company name and logo, product strength, product count information and etc. With the number of possible inspections, inspecting everything may pose a challenge , but as the previous example shows, not doing it can result in bigger problems.

Verifying Preprinted Labels

If labels are partially printed through a preprinting process, then the preprinted information could be accurately inspected before these labels are used, right? The reality is that not every label is verified. Basically, off-line spot checks through proofreading and pattern comparisons are carried out on rolls. That is to say, selected labels within a roll are only verified. When a roll passes its spot checks, it can then be used for labeling products, even though some of the information may be unreadable or missing. Furthermore, preprinted label spot checks represent an additional step in the product verification process, which means it adds to the overall production cost.

Verifying Complete Printed Labels

If everything is printed on the labels at one time, then this should make the process of complete label inspection a simple operation, especially since on-line vision inspection equipment verifies each and every label. Unfortunately, this is not the reality. Each label is indeed verified, but not all of the information. Companies select what information they want to verify, and depending on the vision inspection system and its software capabilities, only a few of the elements on a label are subject to verification.

The reason that inspection capabilities are often limited is simply due to the fact that the more information present, the more complex the vision application becomes. For the inspection of each element on a label, the setting of an inspection frame is required. Setting several frames to carry out inspections such as OCV on a human readable code, plus adjusting all the parameters for each of the tools, becomes highly laborious and complicated. Then there is the processing capabilities of the system. Many vision inspection systems just don’t have the processing power to inspect all of this detail at packaging line speeds.

Therefore, if a company wants to ensure that all information on their product labels is correct, what options do they have? Companies were essentially out of luck, up to now that is. Due to this demand, Optel Vision now offers companies a Full Label Inspection option on its Code Inspector. This option will verify all printed information on labels, from graphics to human readable information. Furthermore, Optel Vision offers this complete label inspection both off-line and on-line. The Optel Vision Code Inspector, with its small footprint, can be easily installed on an off-line rewind station or directly on the web.

Now companies can ensure that all information is accurately inspected on each and every product label and all in one shot.