10 Red Flags in Your Pharmaceutical Packaging Process that Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Can Erase
Pharmaceutical packaging is not just about putting pills in bottles and blister packs. If you happen to be a pharma manufacturer, you sure know how jarring it is to package your products.
You have to deal with strict regulations, high standards, and complex supply chains.
You have to balance the needs of your customers, your stakeholders, and your regulators in a fierce market.
And, to protect your brand’s reputation, you also have to ensure the quality, safety, and efficacy of your drugs while minimizing costs and environmental impact.
All that gigantic effort is without guarantees, of course. Because, no matter how much work you put into the container’s design and testing to protect the drugs from damaging factors (light, moisture, oxygen, and contamination) and ensure it fits your distribution channels, a slight omission or mistake can still wreak havoc and cost you a whole batch of production.
Thinking of ways to improve your odds, Verdusco Consulting identified 10 common red flags in pharmaceutical packaging that can be solved using artificial intelligence (AI) technology and robotics.
If you are interested, here they are.
Ten Critical Product Packaging Issues in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing to Solve with AI Tech and Robotics
1. Labeling errors
Studies carried out in 2007 and 2016 by competent organizations concluded that labeling mistakes were behind 33% of medical errors and 50% of recalled pharmaceutical products. Those statistics are too risky for any pharma brand, including yours. They compromise your business’ reputation and, more importantly, the patient’s health.
What can you do to avoid labeling errors in your products’ packaging?
Misspelling, incorrect expiration dates, and omission of information are stoppable when you turn to AI technology for help. Optical character recognition (OCR), natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning (ML) will allow you to verify the accuracy and consistency of labels, barcodes, and QR codes.
2. Tampering and counterfeiting
The current growth of online distribution channels has opened the gates to the commerce of false raw materials and medications. In this landscape, tampering (the alteration of a drug) and counterfeiting (drug trafficking) are giant threats to the integrity and security of your pharmaceutical products. Both compromise the quality, safety and effectiveness of your drugs. And create economic losses and reputational damage to your brand.
How can you protect yourself from the negligence of tampering and counterfeiting?
Save the day by strengthening your packaging operations with:
AI technologies such as blockchain, digital signatures, and biometrics for the tracking and authentication of products throughout the supply chain.
Robotics for the application of unique identifiers (like barcodes or RFID tags) that strengthen the tracking and verification of genuine products in the packages.
Robotics and advanced sensors to detect packaging inconsistencies related to acts of tampering and counterfeiting.
3. Packaging defects
Poor material selection for your drug’s container may cause serious problems. The same can be said about using the wrong machines to manufacture or seal a package. When these kinds of packaging defects exist, the medication is subject to a loss of sterility and decay of functionality from exposure to contaminants, oxidation, or degradation.
How can you move past packaging defects in your pharma products?
Your packaging material must have the right properties (porosity, resistance, and durability) to spare spillage and damage. AI helps identify and eliminate packaging defects by using computer vision, image processing, and deep learning to inspect the physical attributes and conditions of packages, such as seals, caps, blisters and vials.
Adding collaborative robots (or cobots) to your packaging manufacturing process is another solution. With robotics, you can automate operations, reduce errors, and enhance quality control over crucial tasks, such as marking and packaging itself.
4. Environmental factors
Is exposure to humidity, changing temperatures, vibrations, or light affecting the quality and performance of your pharmaceutical products? Then inappropriate manufacturing conditions are making your drugs (and packaging) susceptible to environmental factors.
What can you do to stop external influences from damaging your products?
The use of smart sensors, IoT devices, and cloud computing technology in an AI system is a winning solution. Together, the array of accessories will collect and analyze data on environmental conditions to show you what upgrades are necessary to reinforce your process. Afterwards, you can adjust your operation conditions accordingly, improve your finished container, and protect your drugs from environmental factors.
Involving robotics can give you other benefits as well:
Cobots will assist you in handling, packing, and sealing your containers with accuracy so they can resist any condition they were designed to handle.
Drones or autonomous vehicles are helpful means to transport and store finished products in controlled environments for their preservation.
5. Regulatory compliance
The pharma industry is bound to comply with strict regulations (from the FDA, EMA, WHO, and other bodies) as a legal requirement to ensure the safety, quality, and efficacy of their products for patients. Naturally, meeting the compliance standards in your packaging is a crown you want to conquer too.
How can you ensure your packaged goods are in regulatory compliance at all times?
AI tools like natural language understanding (NLU), knowledge graphs, and semantic analysis make it easier to find and understand important information in regulatory documents. Moreover, they generate reports and documentation that create awareness about the issues that matter.
The role of robotics in elevating regulatory compliance is somewhat different. It facilitates the creation and checking of labels with essential product information. For instance, the expiration date and serial number. They can also boost traceability and transparency by recording packaging process data.
6. Human errors
Do you rely on manual processes? If so, you know human errors are inevitable. Especially when complex and repetitive tasks are involved. In pharma packaging, they mean delays, extra waste, or even accidents.
What’s a practical solution to make these unwanted glitches a thing of the past?
Picking up technologies that will change your entire approach and performance. Robotic process automation (RPA), cognitive automation, and intelligent assistants for the automation and optimization of data entry operations, inventory management, quality control and logistics in your pharmaceutical packaging process lead the way.
What can you expect?
According to a McKinsey study on smart quality control, pharma labs can attain a 65% reduction in overall deviations and 150%-200% productivity improvements.
For your packaging operations, you might see a likely outcome.
7. Cost optimization
Businesses in every corner of the world want to bring expenses down. Even more so in the drug packaging sphere, where materials, labor and equipment are expensive.
As a pharmaceutical manufacturer, what can you get from AI and robotics to optimize your packaging costs?
Being smart about where your pennies go is key to remaining a competitive force. With AI technology, you can start using predictive analytics, optimization algorithms, and reinforcement learning to forecast demands, allocate resources, reduce waste, and improve efficiency.
As cobots are faster and more consistent than humans, with robotics, you can expect to speed up your packaging operations while picking up accuracy. With almost zero packaging errors, you will see new possibilities for what you can achieve, saving a few bucks along the way.
8. Customer satisfaction
One of the metrics you use to measure your success is customer satisfaction. This is the ultimate testament to how well your products and services are being received.
How can you build up the trust and loyalty your customers feel for your business?
In the pharmaceutical sector, a solid reputation is the best introduction card any inside company can have with its clients.
AI technology helps you enhance customer satisfaction by introducing you to sentiment analysis, chatbots, and recommender systems. These power tools allow you to understand customer needs, preferences, and feedback. They also deliver personalized services and solutions you can adopt to please clients and attract new ones.
With robotics, you can use deep learning models to detect defects in packaging materials and parts. And use smart devices, probes, or scanners to monitor and test the products for any signs of degradation, damage, or contamination. This combination fosters an environment of high-quality products that customers love and feel happy to come back to at anytime.
9. Innovation
Creating new products or improving your existing portfolio to add value for the customer or the market is essential for staying competitive and relevant in the pharmaceutical industry.
How can you take the next step to innovate as a pharma product packager?
Embrace AI and robotics and release your imagination by using generative design, generative adversarial networks (GANs), and evolutionary algorithms for creating novel concepts and prototypes centered around pharmaceutical packaging.
You might also want to enlist robotics for other projects. For instance, run online testing packaging operations in your facility or maximize throughput in a dynamic mode by using a single programmable controller to manage the robot arms and various process machines.
10. Sustainability
For the sake of future generations, we are traversing the era of preservation. Pharmaceutical packaging is part of this movement. To make a change, the pursuit of sustainability by reforming the environmental, social, and economic impacts created is imminent.
Have you hit a brick wall on the road to sustainability? Transform your outlook!
Let AI give you new means to champion sustainability. You can begin by using life cycle assessment (LCA), circular economy models, and green chemistry methods to land concrete actions as to how to reduce your environmental footprint, increase social responsibility, and improve the economic viability of your pharmaceutical packaging operations.
What else can you do? Bring in robotics solutions that can use deep learning models to generate new packaging designs, shapes, or features based on product specifications, customer preferences, market trends, and sustainable targets.
Get the Support You Deserve
Drug packaging is a delicate process. The labeling and coding of products must be done with accuracy and traceable information. Compliance with local and global regulations for each product is mandatory. Any mistake or omission could mean seeing hundreds of your products recalled or spreading devastating consequences for patients.
But for every tough challenge it brings, it also opens the door to new opportunities to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
From what we’ve seen, by investing in packaging solutions powered by AI and robotics, you can increase customer loyalty, create value for your business, and, as a cherry on top of a cake, contribute to the health and well-being of the people who use your products with more potency.
Still, jumping on new technologies is not an easy leap to take.
What do I recommend in instances where doubts and concerns prevail?
Take baby steps. For instance, you can plan and launch a pilot project for the adoption of AI and robotics in your pharma packaging facilities. Your findings will empower you to make the right call for your business.
My team at Verdusco Consulting can help you get started. To get moving, reach out to us at raul@verduscoconsulting.com.
Kind regards,
Raul Verdusco.
