INTRODUCTION TO INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION - IN RELATION TO - MANUFACTURING OF PHARMACEUTICAL, CHEMICAL, AGROCHEMICAL AND ALLIED INDUSTRIES
Industrial automation refers to man-less execution of the operations or tasks involved in the manufacturing sector, with the help of technological advancements in applied physics, electronics, electrical and mechanical engineering, computer programming and robotics.
Industrial Automation gained the most prestigious position in the entire manufacturing process. As a concept, something started shaping up in 18th century gradually evolved yielding sophistication in terms of PLC (Programmable Logic Control), DCS (Distributed Control System), SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), controlling the chemical reactions, mechanical and thermal operations with the help of hydraulically, pneumatically, electrically powered valves and instruments.
CURRENT SCENARIO (PROBLEMS THAT THE MANUFACTURING COMPANIES FACE):
Chemicals and Specialty Chemicals, Pharma, Food Processing, Petrochemicals and many other industries which involves Unit Operations, as well as, Formulations and Packaging certainly needs industrial automation on a larger scale. Some of the key challenges with many of these can be described as under:
1. Shortage of Skilled Manpower: Churning of Operators and labors is one of the biggest problems of many industries today. Due to the high turnover, organizations needs to frequently recruit and train new talent from the competitive market. This is time consuming, as well as, causes severe losses to the overall throughput and finished product supply chain.
2. Growing complexities in the manufacturing processes: With growing demands from the global clients, as well as, with the mandates from various stringent guidelines and certifications (viz. US-FDA, cGMP, OSHA, CE Certification, 21 CFR Ch-11 compliance and so on), the manufacturing operations have become highly niche and may not be possible with purely human based operating procedures.
3. Demanding Quality Standards by the Clients: With the ongoing trend of continuous improvement, all the standard guidelines and guiding bodies (viz. US-FDA, EU, cGMP, OSHA, CE Certification, 21 CFR Ch-11 compliance etc) demand better than the best of the quality results, which may not be always possible with manual operations.
4. Occasional mistakes leading to financial losses: Handling huge volumes of masses while strictly adhering to the schedules does lead to mistakes during manual handling. At times these can create a snowball effect resulting into very big financial impact.
5. Possibilities of operations hazards and accidents: Dealing with multiple hazardous chemicals simultaneously (that too in volumes), as well as, cumbersome mechanical operations can lead to human errors or mistakes resulting into causalities or fatalities too.
6. Too many compliances to meet: Manufacturing sectors need to meet too many compliances including Quality, Safety, Pollution, various audits etc. Managing all this with the targeted throughput is too challenging and can lead to human errors.
HOW CAN AUTOMATION SOLVE THE PROBLEM:
Automation (in layman's terms) can be defined as those set of automatic actions (executed by mechanical instruments Or equipments) which replaces the manual actions, thereby consistently delivers similar or superior results. It doesn't matter how complex the situation is, as well as, how big is the quantum of work to be done by automation. Some objectives advantages are as under:
1. Shortage of Skilled Manpower:
a. Automation can replace the manual work either partly Or fully.
b. With Automation, we can train the new joinees, as well as, conduct refresher trainings for the existing manpower.
c. With Automation, the operators can work remotely too (example, PLC or DCS operated unmanned actions)
2. Growing complexities in the manufacturing processes:
a. Programming as per 21 CFR Part 11 standards can allow manufacturing units to have total control over all the activities including possibility of tracking mistakes and errors.
b. Failures of instruments, mechanical parts or chemical parameters etc, as well as, deviations caused due to such failures can be easily and effectively tracked.
c. Consistency and the quality of the output can be assured and predicted with high accuracy.
3. Demanding Quality Standards by the Clients:
a. Audits of processes and past records can be effectively maintained thereby ensuring data for TQM is always up to date.
b. Electronic records can be maintained for a very long timespan and can be used for educating the software which controls key steps or actions involved in various stages of the manufacturing.
c. Failures or possibilities of failures are effectively auto-detected well in advance, thereby supporting and strengthening the preventive maintenance processes.
4. Occasional mistakes leading to financial losses:
a. With Automation, we can make the systems fool-proof, thereby, eliminating the possibilities of making a mistake.
b. QAP (Quality Assurance Plan) and stagewise inspections can be mandated ensuring zero mistakes and zero opportunities of escaping the possibilities of making mistakes.
c. Areas of human limitations can be easily addressed by automation, thereby ensuring no or minimal financial losses.
5. Possibilities of operations hazards and accidents:
a. Automation can partly or fully replace human based actions, thereby mitigating the possibilities of accidents and hazards.
b. Any deviations in operating parameters (ex. temperature, pressure, saturation of Nitrogen and Oxygen gas etc) can be easily tracked by automation and preventive and/or corrective actions can be auto-initiated thereby mitigating the risks of hazards and accidents.
c. Concepts like 5Ss and CAPA (Corrective and Preventive Actions) can be mandated (through Automation) in the form of compliances, thereby boosting the workplace safety.
6. Too many compliances to meet:
a. With the possibilities of data tracking and data mining, many compliances (mandated by clients) can be easily executed.
b. Automated systems can integrate and maintain parameters that must be strictly complied with.
c. Deviations and Non-compliances can be auto-traced and corrective actions can be taken quickly and proactively.
Please contact for your specific needs of industrial automation (including AI based industrial automation).
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