Boundless Automation is Emerson’s vision for an industrial architecture built on a consistent, cohesive software ecosystem from intelligent field devices to the edge and to the cloud—integrating operations to make all data instantly accessible, understandable, and usable for analytics, innovation, and performance improvement.
Several of our recent Life Sciences podcasts have featured conversations about the rapid shifts taking place in this dynamic industry. Automation and information management technology are rapidly advancing to help address these challenges.
In a recent Emerson Innovations article, Automation Innovation Delivers Boundless Opportunities for Life Sciences Industry, business leader for Emerson’s process systems and solutions business Nathan Pettus shares how the shift toward digitalization and a Boundless Automation approach is key to helping the industry get life-saving drugs and therapies to patients as quickly and safely as possible while minimizing environmental impact.
Nathan opens by highlighting the challenge pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers face:
With more emphasis on continuous manufacturing and personalized medicines, pharma and biotech processes must be more agile, flexible and scalable than ever to move innovations quickly and consistently from the R&D pipeline to the commercial market. To make that happen, automation has become a non-negotiable for the life sciences industry.
Automation:
…reduces manual touchpoints eliminating many associated opportunities for errors and contamination; enables digital integration for reproducibility, traceability and regulatory compliance; and additionally, drives competitive differentiation among life sciences companies.
Emerson’s Boundless Automation vision:
…is driving the development of a new software-defined automation architecture designed to seamlessly connect and contextualize data from the field to the edge and cloud to deliver unparalleled insights across the life sciences innovation pipeline from development to commercial manufacturing.
Enabling the free flow and democratization of data helps address these tough challenges with:
- Pipeline Acceleration: Getting products to market as quickly as possible
- Flexible Manufacturing: Introducing new products to existing plant sites and quickly changing from one product to another
- Operational Integrity: Being a reliable supplier and ensuring manufacturing facilities can meet production schedules and deliver quality products
- Real-Time Release: Optimizing the review and release processes to save time and reduce losses
- Sustainability: Meeting corporate sustainability goals to eliminate waste and continue to make progress toward carbon neutrality
Industrial control systems, such as the DeltaV system combined with edge devices and cloud-based analytical applications all play an important role in this free flow of information.
Read the article for more on streamlining tech transfer, increasing adaptability, delivering on-time performance, reducing bottlenecks, and driving greater efficiencies. Also check out the Pharma Manufacturing article Nathan coauthored, Accelerating the pharma pipeline is a shared journey.
