Quality & traceability: checking food, medicines and production parts via RFID

Legislation requires it. The production guidelines or GS1-compliant standards prescribe it. Consumer safety for food, pharmaceutical products and many other items must be ensured at all times. RFID technology has a long tradition in quality assurance because it reliably tracks compliance with cold chains or ensures that only flawless parts enter production.

Qualitätssicherung

A permanent fully automated monitoring

A sudden interruption in the cold chain can have critical consequences for foodstuffs such as meat and fish or special medicines. Producers and transporters must ensure the health and safety of the end consumer or patient at all times. Special cold-resistant RFID transponders even record temperature curves over a longer period of time in order to fulfil the documentation obligation. RFID also offers many advantages for manufacturing companies in the use of component QA.

  • Temperature monitoring:
    The transport temperature of goods can even be monitored very precisely in the product using measuring tips. This is important when transporting food, for example. The data is read out, saved and documented. This RFID process also ensures compliance with regulations during transport for medicines or blood samples. Seamless traceability is maintained.
  • Counterfeit protection:
     Counterfeit medicines or placebo pose a major risk to patients, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. The tamper-proof serialisation of medicine boxes with RFID labels ensures secure track-and-trace (already at the raw material supplier) along the supply chain and protects your preparations from counterfeiting. Serialisation is also a prerequisite for rapid batch recalls, e.g. in the automotive industry.
  • Pharmaceutical quality requirements:
    Make your production compliant, safe and efficient. Seamless traceability through real-time data from production to delivery also means compliance with pharmaceutical quality assurance in accordance with the ICH Q10 guideline and GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice). Ensure maximum data integrity through digital automation.
  • Avoid damage. Protect image:
    Defective parts or low-quality components are recognised during the production process and rejected before costs are incurred. Ultimately, the aim is to avoid damage to your customers’ image.
Qualitätssicherung

RF KonSys Quality Assurance Module

RFID transponders specially designed for the refrigeration sector are attached as labels to boxes, ampoules, cartons or containers. Other types of RFID transponders, e.g. hard tags, are recommended for drums and large containers. Depending on the temperature and reading (detection) range, material substrate and ambient conditions, we select the most suitable label for your goods. This can also consist of a combination of RFID and barcode labels.
Mobile handheld devices (MDE), stationary readers and RFID gates can also be used as part of the quality assurance solution. Special hardware is required for reading in the low temperature range. – Robust RFID tags for large temperature ranges – storage of mass data From an economic point of view, we always recommend devices that can be used multifunctionally beyond the specific temperature application.

The RF KonSys quality assurance module solves these tasks: – Temperature monitoring incl. Alert function – Product status storage (defective, cleaned, repaired) – Documentation obligation in ERP – Batch traceability – Compliance with laws and standards: ICH Q10 guideline and GMP – Plagiarism and image protection – Rapid implementation of product recalls.

Your employees receive relevant data for all quality assurance parameters, such as temperature, on the output devices they work with: MDE, tablet (app) or control station (web). Monitor sensitive goods during transportation and comply with all quality regulations. If certain measured values are exceeded or not reached, an acoustic and visual signal warns your team.
The data generated via the RFID transponders and read out via the readers is forwarded to connected systems such as your ERP (SAP or similar) or your production or logistics control center. We implement your protocols in accordance with the documentation specifications. All parties involved are automatically informed of any deviations. We take a lean approach to integration work: we only extract relevant information and output it where it is needed for your team’s work. This saves time during integration.

The strict regulations in the pharmaceutical industry require a technology that is able to control the production quality, make the smallest packaging units traceable and also document the temperature during transportation. RFID is precisely this technology.

Tino Steickert on challenges in the pharmaceutical industry

Application Examples

Temperature monitoring with RFID - RFID Consortium

In the transport logistics of sensitive pharmaceutical products and foodstuffs as well as in deep-freeze warehouses, proof of strict compliance with the cold chain must be provided. Special RFID labels or transponders provide the data for documentation. RFID transponders ensure freshness and quality not only in deep-freeze containers, but also during food processing in canteens and at caterers during defrosting, preparation or transport by providing complete documentation. If a defined temperature or dwell time is exceeded, the system issues a warning in good time.

In the manufacturing industry, machines can identify exactly which finished products are defective and should not be further processed or delivered.
The ‘defective product’ information stored on the RFID transponder is recognised at the next internal reading station. Either at an RFID portal (gate) to the next hall or at the loading gate at the latest. The defective product is recognised and sorted out before any damage to the company’s image can occur.

In the event hire industry, quality assurance of returned items after hire is important for the satisfaction of the next customer. The ‘damaged’ status information about a rental item is stored on the RFID tag and recognised as such in subsequent business processes. The same RFID tag provides information about the further status history: ‘repaired’, ‘stored’, ‘picked for order xy’ and thus maps the complete product cycle.

Special transponders with sensor technology can not only record temperature curves, they are also able to record other sensor values, such as acceleration curves. This can be relevant in the manufacture of engines, for example, in order to check that a certain acceleration value has not been exceeded. The measurement takes place when the RFID tag with active sensor technology is ‘married’ directly to the component. The generated data can therefore be clearly assigned to the respective objects.

Case Studies | References

Automotive Teile Identifizierung mit RFID - RFID Konsortium

Automotive Spare Parts

Automotive brand implements zero-defect solution in outgoing goods

READ PROJECT CASE

available modules
Rückverfolgung von Eventinventar - RFID Konsortium

Event rental

Europe's largest event service provider works more economically and makes party guests happy in the process

READ PROJECT CASE

available modules
Pharmalabor Sample Management mit RFID - RFID Konsortium

Pharma Research

Material Track & Trace in pharmaceutical research

READ PROJECT CASE

available modules

How Does Your Quality Assurance Benefit from the RF KonSys Module?

Automated quality assurance fulfills your legal documentation obligations and offers a range of economic benefits in addition to transparency and efficiency:

  • Monitoring of mobile containers / transport boxes
  • Serialized RFID identification of medicines
  • RFID labeling of traceable products
  • Patient identification (wristbands)
  • Track-and-trace of laboratory samples
  • System safety through predictive maintenance(predictive maintanance)
  • Localization of hospital equipment (beds, mobile diagnostics) via RTLS
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RFID-based quality assurance

  • Time saving: You capture many RFID tags at once, without visual contact, even when moving (industrial truck drives through RFID gate)

  • Safety: RFID transponders provide automated data on quality features in production, patient identification in hospitals or temperature curves for pharmaceutical products.

  • Complete inspection: Thousands of articles are recorded without visual contact, transponders automatically forward the generated data directly to control stations and ERP and issue warnings if necessary.

  • Increased process efficiency: The automated inspection processes via RFID reduce process costs and increase productivity through faster throughput times.

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Manual, paper-based quality assurance

  • Lack of transparency: No real-time information on the status and location of the items.

  • Sources of error: The complete QA control of thousands of articles cannot be fully guaranteed in terms of personnel and is also prone to errors.

  • Einzel-Prüfung: Aus Zeitgründen sind evt.
    nur Stichprobenkontrollen möglich, aber keine vollständige Prüfung aller Artikel einer Produktionscharge.

  • Cost and image damage: Poorly implemented quality assurance can lead to considerable costs and lasting damage to a company’s image.

Conclusion

Unsere QA-Lösung richten wir individuell auf Ihre gesetzlichen und betrieblichen Anforderungen aus.
Verfügbare Lösungen:

  • Condition monitoring
  • Production quality assurance
  • Serialization of medical devices
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf - RFID Konsortium

How will your quality assurance profit from RFID?

Our team will outline initial scenarios with you.