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Chemical Production Facility

A specialty chemical manufacturing facility desired to implement technology that would lead to improvements of product quality and the overall percentage of on-spec product.  Improving the operation of the chemical reactors was identified as a key to increasing the productivity and profitability of the manufacturing facility.  A technology platform was required to provide operators the information and automation that could increase efficiency.  The technology platform required the following elements:

  1. A platform to unify multiple unrelated data sources

  2. Ability to automate and deploy heuristics and rules-of-thumb

  3. A platform to supervise other automation software/hardware

  4. Ability to add and customize graphical user interfaces (GUI) for reactor operators/technicians

  5. A flexible platform that can be developed and maintained by on-site engineers

  6. Automated SQC diagnosis and operator recommendation based upon laboratory and real-time data

  7. Sequential control based upon heuristics and the ISA S88 framework

Intelligent Laboratory Solutions worked with the chemical manufacturer to develop and deploy the platform that fit their needs.   Two applications that have increased the productivity and profitability are described below.

SQC Diagnosis and Recommendation

Based upon traditional SQC, diagnosis rules operators had standard operating procedures (SOP) to change the process to tighten product quality.  The difficulty was receiving and processing the off-line and laboratory measurements with real-time measurements, and then implementing corrective action.  The new platform automatically collects laboratory measurements as they become available.  The laboratory measurements and processed to ensure they are valid with respect to expected limits and timestamp.  The laboratory measurements are then displayed with respect to the SQC limits.  If there are any violations the laboratory measurements, real-time measurements and the current equipment configuration are automatically processed through the SOP to provide an operator with recommended, corrective, process actions.  The operator can choose to adjust, implement or disregard the actions.  This SQC based application has streamlined the process of observing and reacting to product quality deviations.  This process is now consistent, measurable and improvable between different operating personnel. 

Supervisory Recipe Based Control

The chemical reactor of the facility can produce several different grades of products with different equipment configurations.  The reactors often are started and stopped and during production the rate/grade may be changed.  The facility wanted to streamline and automate the routine operating procedures that were manually performed.  The goal is too reduce off-spec product during these operating transitions.  This is accomplished by automating the routine tasks that operators would have to perform.  From this consistent basis a framework is available to continually improve the operational steps and reduce off-spec.  The new platform provides a highly flexible recipe based, sequential control environment based upon the ISA S88 standard.  In addition, to sequential control the sequential structure combines both implementing process actions and monitoring operating conditions.  This provides operators both knowledge of the action to the process and response from the process.  The final recipes are based upon grade and equipment configuration and include operator interaction, material and energy balances and process monitoring.  This application has reduced the operator the burden of routine tasks and allows them to focus upon the overall process and unexpected disturbances.  The process engineer has a consistent platform with performance data from the process to continually improve the operation of the reactors.          

Biological Process Development Facility (BPDF)

    BPDF OVERVIEW

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Biological Process Development Facility (BPDF) is a leading research laboratory in the development of vaccines and therapeutic agents from recombinant proteins.  The BPDF provides public and private sector clients with process research and early manufacturing of new therapeutic molecules for human clinical testing.

The BPDF offers state-of-the-art equipment, pilot-scale facilities and expert scale-up assistance that is time and cost effective. BPDF is uniquely qualified to offer this assistance, offering facilities and personnel that can optimize an entire process from the bench top to the final bulk product.   A large portion of the BPDF's work is in the development of vaccines against biological warfare agents and products that can be used as therapeutic countermeasures to treat people who have been exposed to biological agents.

The BPDF provides these advantages in vaccine/therapeutic agent development:

- Recognized as the leading expert in the recombinant expression system ( Pichia pastoris ), which is used to express the Botulinum vaccines

- One of the few University facilities working in the area of recombinant proteins for vaccines against biological warfare agents

- Focuses on Phase I/II clinical material, allowing rapid development of new processes and production of therapeutic proteins