Customised labelling machines for the pharmaceutical industry

Designed to meet the needs of the pharmaceutical sector, ALpharma is the “made in Altech” industrial labelling line in step with the times, the result of consolidated experience and a capacity for renewal.

The Alpharma range has been designed by ALTECH with a focus on certain areas regarding which the pharmaceutical industry is particularly sensitive, such as the ease of cleaning machines, ergonomics, the quality of the construction materials, the speed of identification and the system of precision sensors.

Ergonomic and accessible. Constructed with “noble” materials, such as stainless steel and anodised aluminium, the labelling machines in the ALpharma line further simplify cleaning operations thanks to the adoption of smooth surfaces, the reduction of interstices, seamless welding and the use of button head screws. The electrical parts have been raised, so as to protect them from possible liquid spills.

Looking at man-machine interaction, the ergonomics of the mechanical parts have also been designed to simplify format change and the repeatability of adjustments via digital positioners and graduated rods for every adjustable element.

Printing and sensors, allies of quality and safety. The printing systems for variable data (batches and expiry dates), a fundamental asset both for the safety of the consumer and for the traceability of the pharmaceutical product, use thermal transfer technology and are able to print with excellent printing quality also at high speeds.

Production safety requires, moreover, a wide use of control sensors and devices. These include laser scanners able to verify the correctness of the pharmacodes and correspondence to the prescribed formulation; OCR cameras and other devices can decode text content and its correspondence with what was input during startup in order to verify the readability of the overprinted variable data; optical sensors check the presence of the label on the product and provide for the automatic expulsion of non-compliant products.

Integrated control systems. An integrated control system, using Siemens PLCs and touch screen interface, controls the entire machine connected to the network and is accessible from remote, managing production by batches with the registration of relative statistics. In addition, the system can meet FDA 21 CFR Part 11 requirements, and therefore provide for the registration of the activities of users logged in and of all occurring events, to be permanently recorded data on files. The machine can be certified according to the IQ/OQ/PQ validation process, with the relative supply of documentation and the performance of FAT and SAT tests according to said protocols.