Nyheter & Events

In this issue:

• Automation Today - Life Sciences Special Edition
• Ingredients for success
• ProsCon acquisition adds process knowledge and boosts expertise
• Extended capabilities for Life Sciences Manufacturing Execution System
• Electronic batch recording: the path to paperless production
• Pharmaceutical giant aims to improve clinical trial supply chain
• Cutting-edge batch production
• Packaging pharmaceutical products: at Imanpack the care is clear to see
• Raising overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)
• Enterprise-wide visibility: the future is within your reach
• Streamlining production processes with MES
• Managing energy costs
• Pharma Automation
• Pharma MES

Meeting performance and quality goals

Automation technology holds one of the keys to ensuring compliant and profitable growth for Medical Device manufacturers

The medical devices industry is one of the fastest growing sectors within Life Sciences, with over 20% growth in segments like orthopedic implants, in-vitro diagnostic and neurodevices. Aging baby-boomers with more active life-styles, and a growing middle-class in rapidly-developing countries are the main demographic factors for this development. The demand for home-care systems drives technology innovations towards an increased number of devices that are smaller, portable and smarter.
Dynamic as it is, the medical device industry is faced with increasing regulatory and operational challenges. Leading companies are investing in technology solutions from IT and automation vendors to ensure compliant and profitable growth.

Increased productivity
Manufacturers are incorporating more automation into their assembly operations to achieve faster production rates as well as to consistently meet quality standards. Ever-shrinking tolerance requirements can no longer be achieved through manual operations.
Device manufacturers are also investing in Manufacturing Execution Solutions (MES) to manage the complexity of their operations, improve quality and performance, and achieve compliance. MES will typically support best practices such as:
• Systematic production and quality data collection (manual and automatic) for work in progress (WIP) visibility, faster problem detection (SPC) and improved Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
• Full traceability of materials, operators, equipment, test results, reworks
• Electronic record management for Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) enforcement, error avoidance and faster device release.

A critical factor for a successful implementation is the capability to integrate with infrastructure components common across all medical device manufacturers:
• Equipment: more testing and inspection machines are required to collect and process larger amounts of data in real-time
• ERP: real-time interface with ERP systems is required to eliminate production reporting delays
• PLM: Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) tools help manufacturers manage all aspects of the device life-cycle. Tight PLM-to-MES integration helps reduce time-to-volume by enabling product design changes to be reflected fast and accurately onto shop-floor BOMs and work instructions.

Using Rockwell Automation solutions, many Medical Device companies have achieved their performance and quality goals already.

For more information, please e-mail us at: info_at@ra.rockwell.com, ref: Medical Device