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DPT Tries a Dose of RFID
In the first quarter of 2009, DPT plans to conduct a track-and-trace and serialization pilot leveraging radio frequency identification at its San Antonio facility for one of its customers, Galderma, a pharmaceutical company focused on treatments for skin conditions. DPT Laboratories is working with RFID vendor Blue Vector on the pilot.
The pilot will be small, Green says, and only one of Galderma's products—a topical ointment packaged in tubes—will be involved. The RFID tags, which Green says most likely will be compliant with the EPC Gen 2 standard, will be affixed to the interior of the individual cartons in which the tubes are packaged. "What is nice about having the tag on the inside of the carton," he explains, "is that none of the artwork will have to be changed on the carton, so we don't have to go through FDA approvals."
Once the tubes are inserted into the cartons, a conveyor will move them past an RFID interrogator. While details are still being considered, Green says the reader will detect whether a tag is operable; if not, there will likely be a robotic arm or some other mechanism that sweeps the product off the line. As each tag's readability is verified, its ID number will be captured and sent to a back-end system that can then utilize that data to create an e-pedigree and invoice. According to Green, DPT Laboratories will outsource that back-end system to a third-party company, and has narrowed the choice to two firms, Axway and SupplyScape.
The individual cartons will then be packaged into a case, to which an RFID label will be attached. The case's RFID tag will contain a unique ID number s correlated with all of the tag numbers of the individual items within that case. A similar process will be carried out when the cases are packed onto a pallet, which will get its own tag. Tag reads will be performed to ensure, at each step, that nothing has changed with regard to the cartons within a case, and the cases on a pallet.
Green says the pilot will help determine how to sequence the items as they move down the production line. "We don't want the RFID process to create a bottleneck," he states. "We also want to test everything to make sure the RFID equipment works as we need it to. If everything works well, than we'll start to expand the pilot, first in San Antonio and then in Lakewood."
Implementing RFID, serialization and e-pedigree technologies won't be cheap, Green says. The company, which has a total of about 100 customers that will need to do something to meet pending laws, currently produces approximately 50 to 60 different product SKUs that will need to be serialized for California. "We're not a huge company," he says, "but we are looking at an implementation, covering about 50 items on seven production lines, that will cost more than $1 million in investments, and that is just in our San Antonio site. But what about the Pfizers of the world, when there are 300 or more production lines around the world? Then you could be talking $300 million."
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The pilot will be small, Green says, and only one of Galderma's products—a topical ointment packaged in tubes—will be involved. The RFID tags, which Green says most likely will be compliant with the EPC Gen 2 standard, will be affixed to the interior of the individual cartons in which the tubes are packaged. "What is nice about having the tag on the inside of the carton," he explains, "is that none of the artwork will have to be changed on the carton, so we don't have to go through FDA approvals."
Once the tubes are inserted into the cartons, a conveyor will move them past an RFID interrogator. While details are still being considered, Green says the reader will detect whether a tag is operable; if not, there will likely be a robotic arm or some other mechanism that sweeps the product off the line. As each tag's readability is verified, its ID number will be captured and sent to a back-end system that can then utilize that data to create an e-pedigree and invoice. According to Green, DPT Laboratories will outsource that back-end system to a third-party company, and has narrowed the choice to two firms, Axway and SupplyScape.
The individual cartons will then be packaged into a case, to which an RFID label will be attached. The case's RFID tag will contain a unique ID number s correlated with all of the tag numbers of the individual items within that case. A similar process will be carried out when the cases are packed onto a pallet, which will get its own tag. Tag reads will be performed to ensure, at each step, that nothing has changed with regard to the cartons within a case, and the cases on a pallet.
Green says the pilot will help determine how to sequence the items as they move down the production line. "We don't want the RFID process to create a bottleneck," he states. "We also want to test everything to make sure the RFID equipment works as we need it to. If everything works well, than we'll start to expand the pilot, first in San Antonio and then in Lakewood."
Implementing RFID, serialization and e-pedigree technologies won't be cheap, Green says. The company, which has a total of about 100 customers that will need to do something to meet pending laws, currently produces approximately 50 to 60 different product SKUs that will need to be serialized for California. "We're not a huge company," he says, "but we are looking at an implementation, covering about 50 items on seven production lines, that will cost more than $1 million in investments, and that is just in our San Antonio site. But what about the Pfizers of the world, when there are 300 or more production lines around the world? Then you could be talking $300 million."
