Flexible production reliability

The application of robotics to enhance laboratory productivity has met with some success with many early adapters and in laboratories with high-volume repetitive routine assays. However, the requirements for extensive installation, development, validation and continuing maintenance effort have slowed the growth of robotics in pharmaceutical laboratories. Many robots in pharmaceutical R D labs have been abandoned or mothballed because they were not sufficiently flexible or reliable at... 

Both flexibility and reliability are enhanced by an additional feature of the system the two sections of five adsorbers can be decoupled to permit operation on a single train of five beds. This allows hydrogen production to continue at some reduced level if a problem occurs with part of the unit. When operating in this mode, the Wintershall plant has produced between 50-60% of the full design product flow for ten-bed operation. Very good recovery has been realized in this mode as well (2). 

The equipment, which needs to be flexible, fully reliable, and geared to the ultimate goal (mass production of sterile / nonsterile drugs or ingredients, experimental research, technical development). 

Hudson et al. (2001) divided performance measurement into 6 areas quality reliability of products dehvered or waste from the production service time the reduction in waiting time and resource utilization flexibility productivity and introduction of new products finance sales, cash flow, and inventory customer... 

Summarizing it could not be emphasized enough that the future and the acceptance of microanalysis systems will depend on the development of devices which can match or better surpass the properties of present analysis instruments as far as reliability, stability, selectivity or specificity and sensitivity are concerned whereby longevity and fast response times are of equal importance Last not least new flexible production techniques will have... 

We are confident that any user of this combined evaluation technique, as well as the development of future test standards for manual ultrasonic testing will benefit from this result, because it allows a greater flexibility in the applicable method without loosing reliability. Often an expensive production of a reference block can be avoided and therefore testing costs are reduced. Since all calculations are performed by a PC, the operator can fully concentrate on his most important duty scanning the workpiece and observing the A-scan. Additional time will be saved for the test documentation, since all testing results are stored in the instrument s memory (the PC s hard drive) with full link to the Software World (Microsoft Word, Excel, etc.). 

Improving FCC unit profitability requires operating the unit against as many constraints as possible. Additionally, selective modifications of the unit s components will increase reliability, flexibility, and product selectivity, and reduce emissions. 

On the other hand, in comparison to traditional recipe-driven multipurpose batch plants, new technical requirements arise from the use of mobile units. An important pre-requisite for a safe and automatic production are reliable docking systems that provide failure-free connections between the mobile vessels and the stationary processing stations. In the docking process of the mobile vessels the connection of pipes, of electric power and of signal processing equipment is necessary. The vessels therefore must be placed accurately. If vessels of different size are used, the connections must be flexible enough to cope with these. 

In the chlorate industry, EMOS has proven its utility and cost-effectiveness in several production units throughout North America. It has been developed from an industrial perspective based on a flexible modular system and has demonstrated good reliability with over five years of continuous operation in some chlorate facilities. The system can be installed inside a few days requiring minimal shutdown of production facilities. Its operation is simple and non-intrusive on the normal control of the electrolyser process. 

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