Thursday 3 March 2011

Control system for pharma manufacturing facility

Automation and control systems specialists Denca Controls Ltd has been commissioned by one of the UK’s leading producers of patient care pharmaceuticals and biotechnology to supply the control systems expertise for the company’s new manufacturing facility in Liverpool, UK.

The construction of the new facility is attributable to the overwhelming demand for the company’s groundbreaking dialysis substitute which facilitates a mobile alternative to traditional dialysis techniques. The chemical formula in question frees patients from the need to be connected to a dialysis machine for eight hours at a time and instead enables cleaning of the blood from the convenience of a portable bag.

The £500,000 turnkey project has enabled Denca to demonstrate the full range of its expertise all the way from developing process diagrams to the design and manufacture of control panels through to software, programming, installation and commissioning. In all, five Siemens S7300 PLCs are to be networked together with MP 277 touch screen HMIs, a Profibus Remote IO installed and communication with package vendors achieved on a Profibus DP.

Tighter compliance controls are an inevitable and necessary fact of life for the pharmaceuticals sector. And here Denca’s experience in the field is proving invaluable in securing the necessary validation documentation to support FDA and GAMP 5 compliance.

Denca Controls Ltd