WAIBLINGEN (GERMANY): A leading global process and packaging technology provider, Syntegon Technology, formerly the packaging division of the Bosch Group, recently installed the first fully validated visual inspection system utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) in an automated inspection machine. The installation constitutes a major step in the company’s sustained effort to introduce AI to pharma visual inspection, thereby exploring largely uncharted territory in the industry. “We are proud to announce this important move, which is the joint result of long-standing visual inspection expertise, solid software & pharma validation competence, courage to cross boundaries, and an excellent partnership with our customer,” said Dr José Zanardi, responsible for vision inspection development & applications at Syntegon.
As one of the most challenging stages in the pharma manufacturing process, inspection requires ever more sophisticated visual systems to process increasingly complex products.“Especially for high-cost pharma, every single false reject is one too many,” Zanardi added. AI applications have the potential of further increasing detection rates and decreasing the number of false rejects in difficult products like highly viscous parenteral solutions with air bubbles, which are sometimes hard to differentiate from harmful particles. AI utilizes 'Deep Learning' algorithms which are capable of accurately identifying recurring patterns and deviations.
“A growing number of 'Deep Learning' vision applications are already on the market. Our task was to adapt those applications for pharma purposes, which essentially also includes validation,” Zanardi further explained. In fact, thanks to thorough in-house software and visual inspection expertise, Syntegon was able to develop a solution that only requires moderate modifications to the already existing vision systems. The company leads the field with over 40 years of experience in the development and manufacture of visual inspection machines, covering a wide array of manual, semi- automated and fully automated solutions for all liquid pharma and container types.
After starting with the AI development in 2017 and performing a large number of tests, Syntegon recently installed its first AI-equipped visual inspection system in a fully automated and validated machine in a customer’s production line. Amgen, one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies, uses the system to reliably distinguish air bubbles at the syringe’s rubber stopper from foreign particles, where conventional vision technology often mistakenly identifies safe products containing bubbles as defective. “This challenging project required a lot of dedication and expertise. In cooperation with Syntegon, we have implemented the world-first syringe inspection machine with AI and underline our market position, both in biotechnology production and in technology,” said Manuel Soto, Principal Process Development Engineer at Amgen.
In this customer project, Syntegon’s AI-based vision system was able to increase the particle detection rate by 70%, while reducing the false detection rate by 60% (average values in a particular inspection production efficiency of injectable drugs,” Zanardi commented. Backed by this success, Syntegon is set to implement AI in further inspection machines for different products and container types, thus contributing to the production of safe and reliable pharma products worldwide.
