Pharmaceutical Industry

This paper provides a brief description and overview of the implementation of a Building Management System (BMS) including Monitoring & Targeting at a Large Multi National Pharmaceutical Manufacturer in the North East of England.

Background

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 BMS was a Landis & Gyr standard system used across approximately 25% of the plant. The system was developed and expanded to provide control to a large chilled water systems, production air handling units, office air handling units and the implementation of a Monitoring & Targeting System covering Electrical, Water and Natural Gas.

Implementation

The driving force for the implementation of the M&T system was to enable automatic meter reading on the plant and identification of poor utility usage. Before implementation water leakage on the plant was excessive no energy measurement was undertaken i.e. Degree day performance, batch analysis, etc.

The BMS system was instrumental in reducing the operating cost on the plant by:

• Optimising the start of non critical plant.
• Managing the balance of running hours across the plant.
• Providing monitoring & targeting information enabling management decisions to be made that could prioritise saving opportunities.
• Providing closer control thereby reducing energy usage
• Identifying utility leakage, especially water

The Results

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

• Water consumption on the plant was reduced by 50%.
• Energy consumption was reduced by 10% amounting to 600000 kWh/yr of electricity
• Maintenance costs were reduced on this area of the plant.
• Labour efficiency was increased by reducing the menial task of meter reading collection

Category: Case Studies