Brussels (Belgium), 24 May 2011 - To help Bristol-Myers Squibb comply with French regulation, which requires every pharmaceutical product distributed on the French market to be marked with a Datamatrix code, Zetes designed, produced and installed 25 machines that are now integrated with their packaging lines. The machines are constructed with BMS’ strict requirements with regard to marking, labeling, tamper-evident sealing, quality control and performance. They handle extreme volumes, up to 400 containers per minute per packaging line, and enable BMS to achieve 100% control over the quality of the identified products.

  • 5 production lines equipped with machines that combine Datamatrix marking, labeling, tamper-evident sealing and quality control
  • All machines designed to cope with extremely high volumes and high quality control standards
  • Project delivered, from design to implementation, in extremely short timeframe  

Zetes delivered BMS a one-stop-shop solution.  In a very short timeframe, this involved designing, producing and implementing 4 types of machines (all constructed in balcony style) in line with BMS’ requirements and the quality standards of the pharmaceutical industry. Depending on the packaging line, the systems combine Datamatrix marking, labeling and tamper-evident sealing. To match the highest standard in terms of quality controls, cameras check each individual box. Datamatrix barcodes that do not meet the strict quality standards are evacuated by the automatic ejection module.  Thanks to Zetes’ management software, the data capture is reliable  and configuration of all the components  is automated.

Sylvain Ballesta, Project Manager at BMS said, “Our production site in Agen is the biggest in the world for effervescent products, 400 million boxes of medicines come off the conveyor belt every year.  The stoppage of a machine on a line interrupts the entire production, so we wanted machines that were extremely robust and adapted to our needs. What’s more, we have very high quality standards."

He continued, “We really appreciated the flexibility of the engineering by the Zetes teams – they provided us with machines that met our requirements perfectly. The machines have very specific and practical functionalities, such as modules to modify the height of the machine, conveyors that roll the products, a totally centralised and secured interface and so on. This project has been highly innovative, which will enable us to make other advances in quality. “

The regulations in the pharmaceutical industry are becoming ever stricter and we are happy to help customers as Bristol-Myers Squibb ensure compliance with legislation. One of the factors behind the success of this project was the close collaboration between local teams and the Zetes 3i Print & Apply Competence Centre, our international team specialising in the design and construction of industrial marking and labeling systems. This enabled BMS to benefit from Zetes’ years of experience in the field of systems integration and its engineering capabilities in the field of marking and labeling, printing and process-control, PLC programming and ERP (SAP) integration.”

Alain Wirtz, CEO at Zetes

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