In the pharmaceuticals industry, the claim of 100% testing, and the possibility of agreeing longer product shelf life as a result, can lead to significant commercial advantage. Traditional, offline inspection may not offer a manufacturer the ability to test every item, leading to batch quality testing by sampling and the waste of potentially acceptable products.

Improvements in sensor technologies allow for online, single item testing which drastically improves yield.

Sentec’s client for this development programme was an SME supplier to major pharmaceutical companies. Sentec developed a method of online inspection of blister pack seal integrity, detecting holes as small as 5 µm in diameter, weak seals and capillaries using dedicated image processing. Sentec’s manufacturing equipment offered a real-time and low cost, yet versatile solution that can be used with different packaging types and is viable for high speed throughput of up to 300 units/min.