Using Smart Manufacturing to Enable Energy-efficient Manufacturing of Pharmaceutical Products
Project Lead: Rutgers University
Partners: University of Delaware, Johnson & Johnson
Member % Cost Share: 50.07%
CESMII % Cost Share: 49.93%
Duration: 18 Months
Problem Statement
There is a significant market opportunity for the development of SM based platforms to produce pharmaceutical dosage forms such as tablets/capsules. Regulatory authorities such as the U.S FDA have mandated that manufacturing be based more on science- based understanding and data-based analytics compared to the traditional manufacturing practices based on heuristics.
Project Goal
Develop an integrated SM platform to improve the energy productivity and reduce energy intensity of a pharmaceutical tablet manufacturing process via wet granulation (WG), whilst maintaining other performance metrics such as product quality.
Technical Approach
- Real-time measurement and analysis of material attributes
- Develop hybrid models to perform virtual experiments and to optimize energy consumption
- SM-enabled model and data integration for efficient manufacturing
- Demonstrate reduction in energy consumption and re-usability of prototype components
Deliverables/Outcomes/SM Marketplace
- Delivered baseline for continuous and batch manufacturing energy requirements
- Developed and delivered hybrid model and flowsheet model
- Validated optimal batch production run and continuous production run showing decreased energy consumption
- Completed techno-economic analysis and comparison of batch and continuous processes
- Wet granulation process predictive models
- Analytical methods for wet granulation
- Near-infrared sensing solutions applicable to other manufacturing processes
Potential Impact
- Process intensification of production which could lead to ~2.5 times reduction in fixed investment
- Much shorter times for a production of therapeutics, in terms of time-to-market
- Crosscutting innovations that could directly be adapted to other manufacturing industries like biologics, food, specialty chemicals
- Will lead to overall energy and cost savings
Benefits
- An integrated modeling, sensing, control and data management program leading to improvements in energy productivity and efficiency
- Reduction in costs compared by implementing SM techniques into current
traditional manufacturing practices - Training students and industrial practitioners on SM techniques and tools
- Improvement of the pharmaceutical supply chain which are currently complex and inefficient
