ABSTRACT
Confronted with the global challenges including COVID-19, pharmaceutical manufacturing needs to simultaneously achieve long-term efficiency and short-term resilience. Process systems engineering (PSE) can provide scientific basis here, and in fact, PSE researchers have made significant contributions to pharma in the last decade. The author, after having worked for a global pharmaceutical company, initiated research on pharmaceutical process systems engineering: Pharma PSE. The research tackles different challenges in small molecules, biopharmaceuticals, and regenerative medicine, at the scales of molecules/cells, processes, and the society. This paper first introduces the viewpoint of Pharma PSE, followed by showcasing a research example that involved a range of computer-aided analyses at different scales. The multiscale approach of Pharma PSE can provide a new horizon to “reimagine” pharmaceutical manufacturing processes and beyond, towards establishment of a sustainable healthcare society. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.
ABSTRACT
Increased demand for single-use personal protective equipment (PPE) during the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a marked increase in the amount of PPE waste and associated environmental pollution. Developing efficient and environmentally safe technologies to manage and dispose of this PPE waste stream is imperative. We designed and evaluated a hydrothermal deconstruction technology to reduce PPE waste by up to 99% in weight. Hydrothermal deconstruction of single-use PPE waste was modelled using experimental data in Aspen Plus. Techno-economic and sensitivity analyses were conducted, and the results showed that plant scale, plant lifetime, discount rate, and labour costs were the key factors affecting overall processing costs. For a 200 kg/batch plant under optimal conditions, the cost of processing PPE waste was found to be 10 NZD/kg (6 USD/kg), which is comparable to the conventional practice of autoclaving followed by landfilling. The potential environmental impacts of this process were found to be negligible; meanwhile, this practice significantly reduced the use of limited landfill space.
ABSTRACT
We propose the AQUILA framework (Adaptive Quality Assurance in Industrial Applications), a concept for digitalization in Industry 4.0 to support the entire industrial manufacturing chain, laying the groundwork for adaptive quality assurance in times of disrupted supply chains and, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, restricted travel possibilities. To that end, our proposed framework allows for the definition and description of industrial processes, quality assurance and testing protocols, and training scenarios in a comprehensive notation based on BPMN, and supports users in task execution, documentation, and evaluation by providing smart glass-based HCI with eye tracking technology, delivering a combination of process documentation, context-sensitive AR visualization, gaze-based interaction schemes, and remote maintenance and assistance functionality. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Pandemic Covid-19 has had an impact not only on health aspects but also on the economy of Indonesia, both from demand and supply. Problems in Indonesia's government, such as the lack of medical equipment and supporting facilities in handling Covid-19 pandemics, have triggered the need for a sudden (urgent/emergency). On the other hand, there are still many distributor companies that have no experience in handling emergencies. One of the impacts is the delivery of goods that are not on time /late. To solve the problem, this study aims to get a process business in a distributor company with more effective and efficient processes by involving intercompany to increase the timeliness of delivery to customers. We propose using BPR (Business Process Reengineering) and simulation to model and analyze the current process and redesign the repair process. The results were obtained, with the average procurement of goods decreased by 46%. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Dairy farming is an important branch of agricultural production for the supply of the Austrian population with domestic food. This paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Austrian drinking milk supply chain. For this purpose, a tripartite approach was chosen consisting of a process description using Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), a qualitative System Dynamics analysis with a Causal Loop Diagram (CLD), and the use case of the COVID-19 pandemic in the year 2020 in Austria. The results show that the drinking milk supply chain is complex and consists of many individual process steps. However, the number of locations that are passed through during drinking milk production is rather small. The CLD revealed that reinforcing feedback loops occur in the provision of packaging material and the availability of dairy staff. Analysis of the use case showed that the system of dairy production in Austria is stable in the tested scenario, and that the supply chains preserved their function also during the pandemic. Dairies with diverse product ranges were able to react more easily to the massively changed demand situation. The insights gained by this research may be used to increase the resilience of the drinking milk supply chain. Furthermore, the methodological approach can be transferred and used to analyse the supply chains of other foods. © 2021 Johanna Singer et al., published by Sciendo.
ABSTRACT
To overcome pandemics, such as COVID-19, vaccines are urgently needed at very high volumes. Here we assess the techno-economic feasibility of producing RNA vaccines for the demand associated with a global vaccination campaign. Production process performance is assessed for three messenger RNA (mRNA) and one self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) vaccines, all currently under clinical development, as well as for a hypothetical next-generation saRNA vaccine. The impact of key process design and operation uncertainties on the performance of the production process was assessed. The RNA vaccine drug substance (DS) production rates, volumes and costs are mostly impacted by the RNA amount per vaccine dose and to a lesser extent by the scale and titre in the production process. The resources, production scale and speed required to meet global demand vary substantially in function of the RNA amount per dose. For lower dose saRNA vaccines, global demand can be met using a production process at a scale of below 10 L bioreactor working volume. Consequently, these small-scale processes require a low amount of resources to set up and operate. RNA DS production can be faster than fill-to-finish into multidose vials; hence the latter may constitute a bottleneck.