In a recent chat with an automation engineer at a major pharmaceutical manufacturer, the conversation turned to visibility into the manufacturing and packaging process. "The need to know where the process is at any given point in time is common to most packaging operations, not just pharmaceuticals," he said. "We don't view packaging as a disconnected chain of events executed by individual pieces of equipment. We view it as a continuous process, from labeling through palletizing and right through to shipment out to the warehouse. We need to communicate with the process holistically, and packaging machinery OEMs are not always helpful in this regard.
"Sometimes," he said, "that means that we, as equipment owners, are forced to do the integrating that they don't do. It's not so much that they're reluctant to do it, I think in many cases they're just understaffed. Or they're just inherently more mechanically oriented than IT oriented. So their priority is equipment performance, while information needs take a back seat. We need them to be better at making information readily available, at keeping things transparent."
He also described a shift that has taken place where pharmaceutical packaging is concerned. "Until recently, investment has been focused on chemistry and ingredients rather than on optimizing packaging. But faced as we now are with mounting cost pressures, a shift is underway that makes us look more like other consumer packaged goods manufacturers. Now it's important that we have a handle on our packaging operations, and greater visibility into those operations is step number one."
--By Pat Reynolds, Editor, Packaging World
