The life sciences industry is changing rapidly. Where once companies were focused on developing blockbuster treatments and manufacturing them as quickly and safely as possible, today, personalized medicine has changed that landscape. Now life sciences companies are looking at specialized treatments like cell and gene therapies which are developed and manufactured quite differently from those traditional blockbuster drugs. New companies are smaller and nimbler, better allowing them to test and iterate manufacturing processes for a wide variety of novel products.
In his recent article in Control Engineering, Emerson’s Christian Berg explores this change, demonstrating that a one-size-fits-all approach to automation and operations management is no longer adequate for life sciences companies. Instead, they must make targeted decisions to select the right automation for their needs and scale, while still leaving open the capacity to grow.
For larger operations, an MES
While new treatment styles are emerging in the market, well-established processes for population-targeted treatments will remain. For companies looking to manufacture the same therapy hundreds of times per year, traditional solutions like Emerson’s DeltaV™ Manufacturing Execution System (MES) are still ideal. Christian explains,
“These types of companies typically turn to a manufacturing execution system (MES) that is tightly integrated with a distributed control system (DCS) to orchestrate and document batch process activities. This automated, closed-loop control of a full-scale MES reduces the potential for errors in operation by eliminating as many manual activities as possible.”
One of the key benefits of the DeltaV MES is seamless integration with the DeltaV distributed control system, making it easy for teams to run batches on the DCS while preserving characteristics and parameters to simplify engineering and validation and to reduce the potential for errors.
For smaller, nimbler companies, workflow management
Smaller operations will likely have more human involvement in operations than larger-scale batch processes. However, they will still need automation to ensure Good Manufacturing Processes are continuously followed. For these organizations, Emerson’s DeltaV Workflow Management is ideal. DeltaV Workflow Management provides lightweight, flexible recipe creation by transforming recipe authoring actions into simple entries and drag-and-drop exercises.
Workflow management software still requires enforced sequence of operations, segregation of duties, and robust data integrity, but is faster to install, with less overhead than a full-scale MES solution. Ultimately,
“Such solutions are a simple and scalable way to accelerate digitization and improve product lead-time and quality, without the need for personnel to have coding expertise to support the system.”
Which solution is right for your operations?
In the full article over at Control Engineering, Christian explores the features of both MES software and workflow management in more granular detail. He shares how to best identify the right solution for any size of operation and explores how Emerson’s DeltaV technologies can perfectly fit any of those needs.
