Case Study

Portable manufacturing system delivers multi-site production for pharmaceuticals company

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The Client

Pharmaceutical manufacturing company

Capabilities Demonstrated

  • New equipment automation
  • Remote FAT
  • Plant automation simulator
  • Batch-process automation
  • Electrical design
  • PLC programming
  • DCS programming
  • VFD installation / integration / configuration
  • HMI software development
  • Reporting software development
  • Database configuration

Skid-based batch process control system supports increased global market share

Problem

Our customer needed a way to allow foreign manufacturers to formulate their vaccine in a way that they could ensure would comply with their own manufacturing standards.

Solution

A&E was a sub-contractor to a prime contractor for this project. The prime contractor delivered the overall skid-based manufacturing system. A&E provided the batch control system automation expertise.

Results/Outcomes

  • Increased global market share for vaccine product

Overview

A&E focused on the control system aspects of the system, while the prime contractor delivered the overarching skid-based manufacturing system.

A&E performed the following:

  1. Hardware Design Specification (HDS) development.
  2. Software Design Specification (SDS) development.
  3. Control system Electrical & Instrumentation (E&I) design.
  4. Batch system programming.
  5. Validation of control system hardware and software.
  6. Remote startup support.
  7. Language translation functionality (customizable language tables provided to end customer; they provided the translation).

A&E provided control system expertise (design, definition, programming, guidance), while the customer provided process knowledge.

A hybrid DCS/PLC batch system was developed to assist operators in the manufacturing process for a repeatable and high-quality product. Recipes were used to facilitate the process of making the vaccine.  The transfer and mixing of solutions was fully automated.

The manufacturing equipment mainly consisted of:

  1. tanks,
  2. valves,
  3. pumps,
  4. scales,
  5. mixers.

The customer led Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT). A&E was involved in assisting with test runs and executing the Software Verification Testing (SVT).

Software Developed
Batch process automation
Operator interface application (HMI)
Custom Batch Reporting
Plant automation simulator
Hardware Utilized / Integrated
Siemens control hardware
VFDs
tanks
valves
pumps
scales
mixers