Case Study
Sorting Pharmaceuticals with Machine Vision and Robotics
Details
Unbound Chemicals
www.unboundchem.com
Through machine vision and robotics, Enginuity was able to help Unbound Chemicals in their journey of recycling valuable pharmaceutical waste.
Background
Unbound Chemical is a startup from NL that is currently developing technology to manage and recover valuable pharmaceutical waste. One of the problems in this area, that founder Blaine Edwards wanted to solve, was sorting out the massive amount of unsorted expired pills from pharmacies.
Manually sorting these pills would be a time-consuming process so Blaine wanted to see if it was possible to develop technology that can sort these pills out automatically.
He then sought out the help of Enginuity’s Robotics and Automation Team.
PROJECT PERSONNEL:
Rhodri Armour – Client Liaison
Nathan Field – Project Manager
John Chen – Vision and Robotics Concept Design and Implementation
Solution
In just a matter of 2 weeks, Enginuity was able to prove that it is possible to mechanically sort medications using machine vision and robotic handling.
A couple more weeks were used for tuning and finalizing the outputs for stakeholders.
Our team was able to confirm that it was possible to rapidly identify and count a variety of different pharmaceuticals on a conveyor belt using their shape, size, and color to differentiate between them.
A delta robot then picked and placed those pills of interest into the appropriate bin. Each bin then contains only one pharmaceutical variety for more simple re-processing and recovery of valuable ingredients.
“The best part about working with Enginuity was that they understood exactly where I was coming from as a startup entrepreneur and provided what we needed in just 6 weeks. Everyone was blown away by the speed and accuracy. [Since] we make decisions based on information, we got that information faster than we anticipated, which means that we can go faster.
That’s it. That’s business, that’s start up, that’s innovation.“
What’s Next?
Through Enginuity’s Design Control Process, we were able to provide the Proof of Concept that Unbound Chemicals needed in order to move forward with their business decisions.
Enginuity is looking forward to Unbound Chemical’s success and for the possibilities of working together in the future. This technology is applicable and can be tailor-fit to a wide range of industries and processes – across different samples, sizes and rates.
If you have a process that requires too much time and labor, we can increase your process efficiency, improve your throughput, and propel you towards making better business decisions.
To find out more about our industrial automation and robotics services, you may visit this page.
Or contact info@enginuityinc.ca.
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