Automated handling of vials and pens with robots from Schubert: Packaging pharmaceutical products

A biotechnology company uses a Schubert-Pharma system to package vials and pens to administer a precisely dosed amount of medicine. A total of 13 different formats are packaged on the line. The products require extra-special care. With the vials, glass breakage has to be avoided and the pens should not be activated prematurely during the packaging process. For this reason, the pens, especially, could not previously be handled in a fully automated manner.

The TLM system from Schubert enables significantly increased efficiency, while saving production costs. At the same time, the packaging solution offers high-level flexibility and very precise handling. The integrated 3D camera determines the position of each and every pen and passes this data on to the F4 pick & place robot for highly accurate product picking.

Facts & figures

A total of 13 formats (pens & vials)
Pens:
• As one-count and two-count packages
• 75 cartons per minute for both 1ct and 2ct formats

Vials:
• 300 products per minute infeed from the upstream labelling machine, up to 100 cartons per minute depending on format
• 2 different vial sizes (3 cc and 5 cc); option: 50 cc and 100 cc

End-packaging product configuration:
• 1ct: 100 cartons per minute
• 3ct: 100 cartons per minute
• 4ct: 75 cartons per minute
• 5ct: 60 cartons per minute
• 6ct: 50 cartons per minute