Smart Camera Mimics Humans Decision Making Process in a Vial Crimp Quality Automated Inspection Process

Abstract

Crimp quality is an important attribute in the vial filling process. It protects the sterility of the product from manufacturing until it is dispensed. A pharmaceutical company performed a Failure Mode and Effect Analysis to identify potential risks in its existing capping operation. Due to the severity of crimp failures, even risks with low occurrence have a moderate to high risk level, unless detectability of such defects is certain. Introducing a manual inspection process in parallel with the crimp process is not practical for high volume products. PC-Based vision systems are complex, expensive and require floor space, rarely available in an existing operation. Advances in smart cameras have allowed the development of a vision system capable of mimicking the human decision making process in discriminating between good and bad crimps at low cost with minimum impact to the operation. Key Terms ⎯ Automatic Inspection, Crimp Quality, Smart Camera, Vision System.