From the Factory: tackling production challenges with tech

Rod Schregardus, supply chain technology specialist at Access Group, discusses the role of advanced planning and scheduling (APS) systems in pharmaceuticals manufacturing.  

Digitalisation has transformed pharmaceuticals manufacturing in recent years, helping to get drugs to market quicker, demonstrate compliance and traceability and protect margins. Pressure to reduce drug prices, and competition from the Far East, has only underlined the importance of lean production, prompting many to review and, in some cases, overhaul their existing processes. 

It is perhaps difficult to believe that, in a tech-driven industry like pharma, some manufacturers still rely on basic planning software and spreadsheets. Clearly limited in scope and functionality, these tools rarely provide the visibility required to avoid problems like bottlenecks in a bioreactor, conflict due to shared equipment and the under-utilisation of resources. 

For others, however, the adoption of Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) systems has proved a gamechanger, particularly where production is complex. 

We’ve worked, for example, with a biopharmaceutical vaccine manufacturer, which operates 24/7 and has a 200-strong team responsible for hundreds of processes, including making solutions and cleaning bioreactors and filtration systems. The fact that the facility is also hard-piped also means every process has to be accurately scheduled to make full use of resources.   

Relying on spreadsheets to manage multiple processes, unsurprisingly, took up a great deal of the team’s time, with full-time planners manually preparing documents ahead of a weekly meeting, and updating them with anything that had happened in the past 24 hours. 

Lack of cohesion and detail meant engineers sometimes arrived to carry out planned maintenance, then found out that production had started because the schedule had changed. Now, using an APS platform, the plan covers four weeks instead of one and takes an hour to complete, not a morning. Above all, it has a single plan – or one version of the truth – that everyone can work to. 

Greater efficiency is, of course, key to driving down production costs and helping manufacturers to future-proof their operations. More widely, an APS can align production processes to purchase orders, as well as reduce lead times, improve on-time-in-full (OTIF) and drive up customer service. 

As well as tackling immediate challenges, like sub-optimal use of resources, a robust APS enables them to plan strategic initiatives and scale up in line with their ambitions. 

Importantly, they support ‘what-if’ capacity analysis, the results of which could determine whether a manufacturer is capable of delivering on a project, or whether investment in new equipment, or even a site, is likely to offer a strong return. 

One of our own customers, a planning and engineering consultancy, had been commissioned to carry out a facility design capacity study for the US government and a leading pharmaceutical company. The remit was to prove that a new $1billion facility could deliver vaccine for half the US population in the event of a future flu pandemic. 

As was the case with the biopharmaceutical vaccine manufacturer, this project was far too complex to be handled using spreadsheets alone. Deploying an APS enabled the consultant managing the project to carry out a detailed capacity analysis before production had begun. Having built a capacity model, the team was able to show how long each batch run would take and identify any equipment that was being under or over-utilised. With 10 remediation areas highlighted, they knew what it would take to reduce batch run times and speed up production by an impressive three weeks. 

This analysis proved to stakeholders that the facility was capable of producing the right amount of vaccine even before it was fully operational.  

Advances in drug development, coupled with commercial challenges, mean it has never been more important for pharmaceuticals manufacturers to keep a tight rein on every aspect of production. Taken together, inefficiencies in production will only drive up costs and put firms at a competitive disadvantage. But, as we have seen, those with the right strategy and tools in place to get the most value from every process can surely expect strong returns.