Optimising Process Efficiency of a Fluid Bed System Through Advanced Automation

The publication Pharmaceutical Technology has featured Innopharma Technology's research paper, Self-Guided Control of a Fluid Bed Granulation Process, in their January '20 issue. This paper describes advanced dynamic process control using Innopharma Technology's automated process control platform SmartX and is available at PharmTech.com.

This paper is a joint publication by Innopharma Technology, The Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Technology Centre (PMTC), and Technological University Dublin (TUD). 

 

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The paper focuses on SmartX, a process intelligence & control system developed by Innopharma Technology. This real-time control platform fuses PAT data with process data to provide intuitive and interactive visualisation of the process in addition to enabling autonomous control. 

The SmartX platform provides Real-Time IoT functionality enabling data aggregation, storage, and visualisation for both cloud and edge deployments. The real-time control attribution of the SmartX platform performs Active Dynamic Process Control, which ensures consistent and precise end-product quality. Integrating PAT into the process control strategy reduces the need for at-line sampling and testing compared to the traditional fluid bed granulation processes.

The SmartX platform is commercially available for both new and existing fluid bed systems. This platform is suitable for granulation, coating, and drying processes. 

Chris O’Callaghan

Chris O’Callaghan is Head of Engineering within Innopharma Technology and is responsible for process analytical technologies and control products, applications development, and customer project delivery. He and his team manage the custom engineering projects required to successfully interface control systems with new and existing product lines in the continuous and batch manufacturing spaces, as well as control strategy development and deployment.

Caroline McCormack

Caroline McCormack is a Process Scientist working at Innopharma Technology and supports a number of ongoing R&D projects. She is responsible for experimentation around our process analytical technologies and advanced process control techniques currently in development, across the batch and continuous oral solid dose manufacturing space.

Pharma 4.0

SmartX provides process operation-specific control and connectivity, without the need for extensive customisation. The highly adaptable Data Broker module allows connection to a vast range of sensor technologies, MES and data historians.

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