Pharmaceutical Packaging Line Modernisation

The brief. For pharmaceutical manufacturers, packaging equipment must stay ahead of both demand and regulation. A pharmaceutical manufacturer ran a productive blister/packaging line whose control system was no longer supported: undocumented logic, an ageing HMI, obsolete drives, and — critically — no audit trail or robust traceability to satisfy current compliance expectations. The line was a validation and uptime risk at once.

What we did. Automation Republic re-engineered the line's controls with compliance and traceability built in. We fitted a new, fully documented control panel from our in-house shop, moved format and indexing motion to closed-loop servo control for repeatable accuracy, and installed a validated recipe-driven HMI with user access levels, electronic audit trails and batch/lot traceability. Product-presence, reject-verification and interlock logic were brought up to current safety and quality standards, and every change was captured in as-built documentation to support validation.

The platform. The build was standardised on B&R — X20 I/O, ACOPOS servo, POWERLINK and Automation Studio — for precise motion, structured code and strong data/traceability handling, with the option to deliver on Siemens or Rockwell where a site's qualification base requires it. Serialisation and line-data integration were accommodated in the architecture so the line can feed plant-level track-and-trace systems.

The result. The line returned to production compliant, traceable and fully documented — servo-accurate, spares secured, and supportable for years ahead. The customer received validation-ready as-builts, code and training; audit trails and access control now stand behind every batch. Support is provided locally and via secure VPN remote diagnostics, with change control respected on every update.

Need to modernise a pharma packaging or process line without losing compliance? Talk to Automation Republic — +27 11 794 9684 · www.automation-republic.com.