- Can you afford to take the risk?

A product recall in Thailand in September 2009 triggered by a small piece of metal wire contamination found inside a tablet was estimated to have cost the manufacturer in excess of 1 Million Thai Baht. This was just the cost to finance the product recall, the real costs for the business will be significantly more.

The tablets were meant to reduce the effects of a headache. In this case they did exactly the opposite. More famously the Perrigo “Acetaminophen” contamination incident of 2006 involved the recall of 11 million bottles of headache relief caplets for exactly the same reason – metal wire fragments up to 8mm in length were discovered.

As a responsible manufacturer, you need to ensure quality standards in your product are maintained at the highest levels. In doing this you can protect your customers from harm, avoid the need for costly product recalls and protect the hard earned reputation of your business.

Time to put your Metal Detector to the test?

Your current metal detection standard is probably based on ensuring the detection of a sphere of metal of a specified size - probably stainless steel which is the most difficult to detect. But as we all know, contaminants seldom come in regular shapes and sizes. In reality, contaminants are more likely to be irregular shaped slivers, wires or swarf – a far greater challenge to most metal detectors.

Do you know what your standard test ball relates to in terms of an irregular shaped contaminant?
More importantly, can your metal detector find such contaminants?

Put your metal detector to the test today. Request a special pharmaceutical stainless steel wire test piece.

You may be surprised just how much metal could be going undetected in your product and into the hands of your customer.