Pill Sorting and Blister Packaging Automation

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Blister packaging

Many medical centres, hospitals and nursing homes require automated machine systems to effectively manage and package specific pills and medications for patients and nursing residents. Automated machine systems can not only dramatically decrease turnaround times for assigned prescriptions to patients, but can also increase efficiency and productivity for work undertaken in pharmacies. Precise automation procedures can allow pharmacies to reduce labour costs exponentially as packaging pills will now be done at a more rapid and accurate rate, streamlining the packaging process and resulting in enormous savings for the pharmacies.


Another major benefit that automated pill packing and blister packing machines have is that they aid in accurately dispensing the correct pill count and the exact pill strength, helping increase the safety of patients. Many mistakes arise from pharmaceutical staff incorrectly placing the wrong amount of pills or pill strength for prescriptions resulting in detrimental health consequences for the patients. Automated pill packing and blister packing machines ultimately eliminate the need to manually fill prescriptions forms, allowing employees in the pharmacy to direct their attention to more important tasks which can’t be automated.


We at Fast Automation were awarded a series of projects assisting a pharmaceutical packing company to sort pills into blister packs for individual customers.

The main automation features of our product include:

  • Rockwell Control Logix PLC system
  • Rockwell Point IO and Drives
  • Wonderware SCADA with custom written API/SQL interfaces
  • Balluff IO Link RFID heads and barcode scanners
  • Festo actuators and servos
  • SEW and Flexlink conveying system


The end result is a personalised blister pack filled with a weeks’ worth of pills sorted into days and times to take them. With many types of automated packaging machines out there in the market, contact Fast Automation for a detailed consultation today.


Written by David Askew, the CEO of Fast Automation Pty Ltd.

Based in Australia, David has over twenty years of experience in the automation industry and has performed thousands of world-first, mission critical automation projects. He is highly passionate about helping clients do more for less and do it for longer, better, safer and faster. Leading the industry for new and innovative technologies, Fast Automation are currently integrators of a range of pill packaging machines. Beyond automation, David is a believer of giving back to the community and is a proud supporter of The Kid's Cancer Project among other philanthropic endeavours.

To find out more about automation solutions or how David and the team at Fast Automation can help your business contact us today.

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