Pharmaceutical & Medical Packaging News

For automating blister strip clinical trial packaging, Zed Industries (Dayton, OH) features blister sealers with integrated quality control systems at virtually all production stages.

Zed provides the blister sealer systems in rotary, in-line, and race-track formats. Solutions feature sensors and vision systems for tracking that the right blister strips are placed in the right magazines, the magazines’ fill status, and that strips are placed properly on the blister base card.

“Regardless of number up, we place a sensor at every stage to ensure the integrity of the finished package,” says Peter Zelnick, CEO.

“We inspect the print and bar codes on the fly. The package is flipped over for vision inspection confirmation of product in every cell. At the end of the shift, the data are burned to a disk or sent to a flash card for transferring to the corporate mainframe,” Zelnick adds.

Data captured on production flaws are tracked in count registry. The positions where failures occur are registered with the assist of servo encoding. “We know where the failure mode occurs, and capture that in count registry, so we don’t have to stop the machine if there are any flaws. We can reject product prior to transferring good product off the line,” says Zelnick.

In a typical operation, strips supplied from the blister manufacturing area are stacked and oriented in transfer trays. Operators set the trays into magazine chutes that feed the blister sealer machine. The strips are ready for feeding after the trays are retracted.

If multiple products are being packaged, hoppers are placed at different locations at the machine to avoid misloading by the operators, Zelnick says.

“Traditionally, for packages with multiple products, partitions are used to separate operators for blind loading. We feature keys or sensors at each station, so we know we have the right product in the right slot,” says Zelnick.

SBS cards with heat seal-activated adhesive feature die-cuts matching the blister configuration. Cards are automatically moved into position on a tooling jig. Strips are grabbed from the feeders via vacuum pick-and-place, and laid down on the base card consecutively at each feeding station. Backer cards are then sealed over the face down strips, for creating a one-piece foldover design or a more-elaborate wallet style. The open face construction moves to a folding station for final assembly.

“Heat-seal adhesive is by far the best way to seal a wallet. You can’t pry open the intimately bonded fibers without leaving evidence of tampering. We can heat selectively on the top or bottom to keep the temperature from getting to the medication and to prevent sticking [of the blister foil to the package] when the medication is egressed,” he says.

Zelnick says customer requirements are typically more than 300 wallets per minute. Zed has developed machines with larger index sizes to support larger formats or higher output needs. One machine features 7.4 sq ft of sealing area per cycle, with sealing pressure in excess of 40,000 lb, Zelnick says.

“People are looking for us to do it all. We integrate all the components the customer requires. To assist them in validation, we provide prevalidation support with a specification document.

“You can’t afford to rerun these tests, so it’s critical to ensure that every package goes out properly,” Zelnick says.