Big data on way to enabling 'zero defect' glass tubing

On the way to ‘zero defect’ glass tubing with 100,000 data tags/minute.

New perfeXion system, which generates around 100,000 data tags/min, makes an important contribution to quality assurance for downstream post-processing steps at the beginning of the value chain.

Making accurate glass tubes for the pharmaceutical industry is no light feat: at several metres per second, a virtually endless glass tube comes from the melt at over 1,600 °C and is drawn over a rotating mandrel. By making adjustments to the drawing speed and the air supply, wall thickness and tube diameter can be precisely determined down to the hundredth of a millimeter. A few metres further down the line, the cooled glass section is then cut into roughly 1.50-m-long pieces. From these glass tubes, converters can later manufacture pharmaceutical containers such as vials and syringes. Thanks to a unique big data approach, Schott is now able to measure 100% of every single glass tube in production. This data also enables for post-processing steps to be efficiently aligned with the tubing quality. With big data, the international technology group is creating a new industry standard and raising the quality of pharmaceutical glass production to a new level.

Instead of selecting a few glass tubes from each batch for statistical quality control, the new perfeXion system measures the entire glass tube many times over as it is drawn from the melt. Lasers recognize deviations in diameter and wall thickness, for example, and camera and IR inspection systems can even detect the smallest inclusions in the glass. Around 100,000 data tags are generated every minute. An integrated IT system, evaluating the continuous glass tube with real-time data measurements, calculates incidents of imperfection with such precision that it can later differentiate corresponding individual tubes which can then be sorted out. Each tube is checked again at its completion.

The system’s development took several years. Analysing a curved tube surface zooming down a production line was a particularly difficult challenge. The effort, however, has paid off – not least because the data analysis is a source of insight into how production can be further optimized.

Every year, Schott produces about 150,000 tons of glass tubing, most of which is destined for pharmaceutical packaging such as vials and syringes. Thanks to the new perfeXion approach, quality data can be traced back more detailed, not only by Schott but also the companies at subsequent steps in the value chain. “There comes a particular responsibility being a pharmaceutical industry supplier, and traceability is a major issue in the industry,” says Dr Patrick Markschläger, Executive Vice President at Schott Tubing. “By gathering information on each individual glass tube, we’ve already made an important contribution to quality assurance for downstream post-processing steps at the very beginning of the value chain.”