Pharmaceutical packaging apparatus, method of determining remaining quantity of pharmaceutical packaging paper and pharmaceutical packaging paper roll

Inventors

Yoshina, Katsunori • Sugimoto, Tomohiro • FUJII, Noriyoshi

Assignees

Yuyama Manufacturing Co Ltd

Abstract

Medicine packaging apparatuses and methods for accurately determining a remaining sheet amount of a medicine packaging sheet are described. The apparatus includes: a roll support section to which a core tube of a medicine packaging sheet roll is attached; a sensor disposed in the roll support section for outputting a count value according to a rotation amount; a wireless reader-writer unit for writing information to a core tube IC tag and reading said information; an information generation section for generating information to be written to the core tube IC tag; a remaining sheet amount estimation section for estimating a current amount of remaining sheet based on the information and dimensional information of the core tube; and a controller which selectively performs an operation if a reference time-point count value is not yet written to the core tube IC tag and another operation if the count value is already written thereto.

Core Innovation

The invention relates to a medicine packaging apparatus for packaging medicine by one package using a medicine packaging sheet roll. The apparatus includes a roll support section to which a core tube of the medicine packaging sheet roll is attached, a packaging unit for packaging medicine by one package using a medicine packaging sheet supplied from the medicine packaging sheet roll, and a writing section for writing information to a storage medium provided in the core tube attached to the roll support section.

An information generation section generates writable information comprising rotation amount information as of reference sheet-remaining amount timing and one or a plural pieces of rotation amount information as of individual current sheet-remaining amount obtaining timings. Each current sheet-remaining amount obtaining timing corresponds to a rotation amount of a rotating shaft portion upon unwinding the packaging sheet by a predetermined length at a packaging sheet in-use time-point after the reference time-point. The generated information further includes an amount of used sheet from the reference time-point through the packaging sheet in-use time-point.

The writing section writes the generated information and information regarding the medicine packaging apparatus to the storage medium in the core tube. The reference-time and current-timing rotation-amount information, together with used-sheet amount and core-tube dimensional information stored in the core-tube storage medium, are used to estimate a current remaining sheet amount and provide user warning/display of expected remaining packages, including an embodiment where writing is triggered when an estimated current remaining amount reaches a zero amount or based on an end-of-sheet sensor detecting no remaining sheet.

Claims Coverage

The provided claim set includes one independent claim and multiple dependent claims. Across the claim set, the inventive features focus on writing rotation amount information tied to reference and later sheet-remaining timings to a storage medium in the core tube, together with used-sheet amount and apparatus information, and on conditioning the writing on remaining-sheet conditions including zero remaining and end-of-sheet detection.

Across the independent claim and dependents, the inventive concept centers on generating rotation amount information at a reference time-point and at later sheet-remaining amount obtaining timings, including the used-sheet amount, and writing this together with apparatus-related information to a storage medium in the core tube. Dependent claims further narrow apparatus information to error information and specify writing triggers based on a zero remaining condition or detection by an end-of-sheet sensor.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications