|
|
Quality Inspection of Filled Vials at Fresinius Kabi
|
|
|
Pharmaceutical manufacturer Fresenius Kabi installed a custom inspection system from IPF Ingenieria. The Cognex In-Sight® vision system based inspection equipment controls liquid level in small vials of serum and detects impurities at a speed of 10,000 bottles an hour with no false rejects.
This application demands two megapixel resolution in order to detect impurities in the serum. The speed and reliability of the In-Sight 5603 and its ability to inspect at the high line rates is remarkable and difficult to match. Additionally, Fresenius Kabi realized a return on their investment after just 18 months.
|
Improving decoding yield by 15x
|
First pass read yield is the ability for a decoding system to read codes upon first try. At speeds of 400 or 500 parts per minute, this ratio can be the fine line between profit and loss.
A pharmaceutical company previously used 2D Data Matrix decoding systems that rejected 108,000 parts per year, increasing all unit level costs. To improve packaging yield, they tested the Cognex DataMan® 100X on a run of over 1.3 million parts and achieved a first pass read yield of 99.987% thus drastically improving their throughput and productivity.
With the new ID readers, the numbers of false rejects decreased by a multiple of 15 which resulted in 15 times less rework and significant cost savings!
| |
|
Shipping only filled Bottles
|
|
|
A pharmaceutical company needed to detect whether a bottle was full or empty. Traditional photoelectric sensors gave inconsistent results due to changes in the bottle position.
A Cognex Checker® vision sensor was installed. Checker’s part finding sensor identified a reference feature and an array of contrast sensors inspect the inside of the bottle for the presence of pills. Use of the part finding sensor eliminates the need for bottle fixturing.
Line speeds were maintained due to the elimination of part fixturing, overall quality was improved and throughput was increased. With errors reduced, money was saved due to limited recalls.
|
Robots with “eyes” automates packaging
|
Automating and optimizing production to save money and make things easier. Cost justification is critical in all sectors of the manufacturing industry and vision software has advanced to make automation through vision-guided robotics an affordable solution. For example, in bin-picking applications, there are tangible labor savings and so most vision-guided robotic applications have a return on investment (ROI) of less then a year. For one major supplier, their average labor costs were about $20 per hour. When they implemented a vision-guided robotic solution they reduced these costs to approximately $5 an hour saving at least $15 per hour. Manpower could be better utilized elsewhere. The total estimated labor savings for one year was $160,000. Learn more about Cognex vision software by downloading the VisionPro® Software Product Guide
| |
How Cognex vision would locate a medicine pack, perhaps on a conveyor belt so that a robot can pick and place it into a case.
|
Do you have questions or comments about this email, Cognex or our products/services? We invite you to drop us a note. We will be happy to get back to you quickly with an answer. Click here to contact us.
|
|
|
|
