An international glucose meter manufacturer was looking to implement a solution that would import all product and lot data from their ERP, to then drive the printing, aggregation, and lot trace for every meter, kit, case, and pallet.
Due to a highly regulated and validated environment, custom or label software was not an option because it could not support all functionality needed to ensure accurate tracking. The company chose Apis Wise Packaging Intelligence for their solution because of their ability to integrate and configure their software with any printer, scanner, and ERP system to ensure accurate and safe tracking.
The solution that Apis implemented needed to be flexible enough to work with manual and automatic lines that used PLCs, a label printer, and a laser etcher for the manual lines while automatically controlling when to print the correct label formats for export shipments and UDI compliance. Extensive reporting and workflow enforcement to guard against operator error was also needed and implemented as a part of the solution.
Throughout the packaging process, every meter is scanned, and a kit label is generator on a printer applicator from one of five label formats. As the label is applied, the barcodes are scanned to verify that the label printed and applied is part of the correct workflow sequence. This ensures the correct label is on the correct kit box; logic exists to never allow a meter to be scanned twice.
After the kits are filled, a sequential kit label is printed, applied, and scanned to track the sequence of the order. If a kit is scanned out of sequence or missing, an alarm warns the operator to take corrective action. With real time speeds of up to 2,000 meters per hour, operators can reliably track every scan associated with every meter, kit, case, and pallet displayed on large monitors.
Once the case quantity equals the total number of kits scanned, a case label is printed and applied to the case coming out of the taper. This has a unique case serial number and a list of every meter and kit number in the case.
Similarly, when the cases are scanned, they are added to the pallet and a pallet label with a unique serial number is generated. When they complete the run, the system automatically completes partial cases and pallets has labels printed for them. A final work order report is printed to finish the paperwork needed by QC.
All of this data is logged in the SQL database with user, date, time, order, lot and date code logic for extensive, automatic lot trace and production reporting.