International technology group SCHOTT and French engineering firm SINCAD have signed an exclusive cooperation and development agreement aimed at strengthening SCHOTT’s expertise in the field of camera inspection systems.

The agreement includes the assurance that SINCAD will distribute its highly advanced camera systems exclusively to SCHOTT and not offer them to any other supplier in the pharmaceutical industry in the future.

To manufacture its high-quality packaging for the pharmaceutical industry, including state-of-the-art ampoules, vials, cartridges and syringes, SCHOTT relies on the most advanced camera systems to inspect and ensure the quality of each individual product. The cameras measure the accuracy of the geometry as well as other important parameters. The vision control systems from SINCAD are used to ensure the appearance, dimensional accuracy, colour, and 3D laser profile.

Project director of new production concept vials at SCHOTT Christoph Döppes said: “We have been working with SINCAD for some time now and greatly appreciate their extremely reliable systems. This cooperation now exclusively binds this excellent supplier of vision control camera systems to us.

“We plan to share our mutual know-how in order to learn from each other, make our products even better, and develop better camera systems in the future.”

This will also involve artificial intelligence, an area that SCHOTT has been strategically investing in most recently. For instance, the camera systems will be shown images of defective products so they can independently learn to recognize even the most minor defects in the products manufactured.