Medical technology company ensures it can verify barcodes and run other checks

Diagnostics supplier Hologic has invested in an integrated inspection system provided by Fisher Smith, allowing it to be sure codes meet all the mandated quality standards.

Customer complaints about unreadable codes made it clear that products leaving the factory needed to be verified to ISO standards (ISO 15416 for 1D and 2D codes). But space on the production line was limited and the legacy vision systems could not achieve the required grading.

The company, which also supplies imaging and surgical products, with a strong focus on women’s health, asked Fisher Smith to engineer a system that would not introduce a second device and could integrate with existing control systems.

According to senior manufacturing engineering manager Matthew Seddon, Hologic has its own ‘Right First Time’ and ‘Quality at Source’ internal standards that it strives for.

“Rolled out across eight production lines, this project has delivered Right First Time to these processes and removed significant overhead costs, where traditional labour-intensive offline printing and verification methods were used,” he says.

This latest project, to develop inline character and barcode verification using Cognex vision technology, ticked the Quality at Source box, too, Seddon adds.

The single integrated platform combines barcode verification with additional inspections, such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR), placement and label quality. This meant Hologic operators could continue using one system for all inspection tasks, without extra training or disruption.

The system interfaces directly with the machine PLC and human-machine interface (HMI), includes a consistent software platform across different lines and is configured for remote support, Fisher Smith says.

According to the supplier, feedback from the site teams has been positive, with operators praising the clearer interfaces and engineers noting the improved consistency across machines.

Fisher Smith is an established partner, having previously supplied Hologic with optimisation of existing systems as well as new installations and training.

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