Thursday, February 23, 2012

Case Study 01

IRIS

Pharmaceutical Industry

This paper provides a brief description and overview of the upgrade of a

35 Trane Air Handling Units at a Large Multinational Pharmaceutical

Manufacturer in the North East of England.

The Pharmaceutical Manufacturer is a producer of final product over the

counter and prescription medicines. The processes involved are the purchase

of raw active and bulk inactive materials used to produce mainly tablet form

medicines. The powder materials are mixed, granulated, fluid bed dried,

compressed or encapsulated into tablet form and packaged mainly in blister

foil or plastic bottles.

The Air Handling Units concerned are used for the air conditioning control

to the granulation and compression suites on the plant. These units are

required to provide a stable working temperature and humidity to the area

ensuring product quality within predefined limits. When these atmospheric

limits were not controlled product failure occurred.

The air handling units were some 10 years old when the project was implemented

and the drive was a PYE magnetic coupling, which provided a variable speed fan

with a fixed speed motor. A number of the units were failing to control to the

correct speed causing in balance of air flow throughout the facility and were

also seen a poor use of energy. The decision was made to replace all drive

units with Variable Speed Drives; this offered two improvements to the facility:

Before the changes were implemented a number of measurements were taken to

benchmark the performance of each system, these included:

These figures were checked against original design data and logged to ensure

quality systems were followed and validation criteria met for the manufacturing

process. During non production times the air handling units were stopped and

contractors employed to carry out the following activities

The results of the project were extremely positive and can be summarised as follows:

With the existing equipment failing downtime on the plant was increasing significantly.

The overall and upgrade of the units provided a reliable and cost effective plant.

The quality of the product was improved as room conditions were stabilised and the

potential of cross contamination and environmental contamination was reduced.

Energy consumption across the system was reduced in excess of 15% amounting to

505890 kWh/yr. Maintenance costs were reduced on this area of the plant.

Additional benefits offered were improved employee relations due to an improvement in

the working environment.