Pharmaceutical Technologist - September 2007 - (Page 28)

Beauchamp // they cause are troublesome to say the least. To attempt to avoid this problem, pharmaceutical manufacturers and packaging companies have previously installed multiple units, all calibrated for different-sized media. These units take up a great deal of space and lead to considerable costs in terms of equipment costs, energy consumption and maintenance time. Many smaller companies, however, simply haven’t been able to do this and have had to cope with constant readjustment, which wastes a significant amount of time and money. Furthermore, conventional label printers have had external components, such as power suppliers, which were easily damaged, and presented a health and safety hazard because they were easy to trip over and stop a machine in the middle of printing. Similarly, flimsy plastic casings have resulted in the machines being easily broken, with the need for expensive regular repairs, maintenance or replacement. With these types of conditions, meeting the standards set for efficient and consistent printing Manufacturers and packaging companies cannot afford to fail compliance because of difficult to read or badly designed labels. of pharmaceutical labels has been, at best, problematic and, at worst, impossible. Improved printing To overcome these problems, the latest generation of barcode and label printers offer a far greater range of options and functions than traditional models. High-performance plastics are being used to replace traditional heavy, multipart metal chassis assemblies with single-piece housings and lightweight, yet tough, media handling units. The range of plastic components available are often far more robust than the metal or older plastic parts they have replaced, and have allowed the design of modern printers to be radically altered so that the overall strength of each unit can be derived from both the plastic cases and metal chassis; this allows the number of parts to be reduced, helping to make the printers more compact and less expensive. Cost, size and weight have been reduced by the use of modern high-performance power supplies, motors and drive mechanisms, which offer greater levels of output to be achieved from extremely small component parts. Just as importantly, the dramatic fall in the cost of microprocessors has enabled far greater functionality to be built into each printer, which can now be programmed directly, or via a wireless-enabled personal digital assistant, rather than through a dedicated proprietary network. As a result of these developments, today’s thermal transfer and direct thermal label printers are lightweight, compact and simple in construction, allowing them to be easily located at the point of use, either on a desktop or even mounted on a wall. As an example of this new user-friendly design, many of the latest printers are available with a clamshell construction, so that loading and unloading of media is quick and simple, regardless of the horizontal or vertical orientation of the unit. Perhaps as importantly, the increased functionality and improved media handling possible from the latest label printers means that medical device manufacturers and packaging companies can reduce the number of print units required, as a single unit can be used for multiple tasks, regardless of the type of media, rather than dedicating one printer to each type of label media as was previously the case. This ability to standardize on a single size and type of machine helps to cut overall operating costs, reducing costs and the time required for training and maintenance. The latest printers can, for example, handle both standard direct thermal labels and specialized materials, including advanced polyester labels with antimicrobial coatings and the metallic labels that are typically used for serial number tagging. Similarly, it is now also possible using standard and low-cost printers to produce labels that are long lasting and capable of resisting aggressive solvents, and to print a far greater range of label widths than has previously been possible, ranging from narrow labels (less than 20 mm) for the desktop models, to more than 200 mm in the wide format printers. Likewise, US regulations stating that all pharmaceuticals packaging must include a two-dimensional (2D) datamatrix barcode, had led to the development of these printers, 28 September 2007 l pharmaceutical technologist

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Technologist - September 2007

Contents Editor’s Comment News Morpheus Market Watch CPhI Worldwide 2007 Compliant Pharmaceutical Labelling Q&A

Pharmaceutical Technologist - September 2007

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