Aesica speeds new pharma production with automation update

Cramlington, UK - Aesica Pharmaceuticals, based in Cramlington, is expecting to speed up its introduction of new products following the purchase of a new automation system based on ABB’s 800xA operator interfaces and AC460 controllers. The upgrade cost around £300,000 but due to the increase capability of the system to support new products a ROI of less than 1 year is expected.

The new system is designed to allow more products to be scheduled through the production plant and in an easier way than with the previous system - an ABB MOD 300 installed in the 1980s. It will run one of the company’s production processes. Designated C1, its main product is Flurbiprofen, an anti inflammatory drug from the same family as Ibuprofen.

Richard Cross, production support leader for Aesica, said: “The original control system was installed to run a single manufacturing process. However, the plant is now a multi-purpose plant running several products. To make these products, we required new coding sequences and the original system was not designed for this. Our process exceeded the memory limits of the MOD 300 and so we needed an upgrade.”

Following a site survey to determine the status and loading of the existing system, ABB proposed a solution based on its latest AC460 controllers. The AC460 controller has a CPU up to 11 times faster than previous controllers and has 16 MB of application memory, meaning fewer controllers are required. The efficiency and speed of the controllers has allowed Aesica Pharmaceuticals to replace 25 of the MOD 300 controllers with just 10 AC460s.

The AC460s have better reliability, with 1:1 redundancy and 25 ms failover, the time taken to switch automatically to a redundant controller. The controllers also feature CPU redundancy, I/O redundancy and power supply redundancy, meaning that the system will never be without computing and signaling facilities or power. This ensures both production of pharmaceutical products and product manufacturing data as required by the pharmaceutical industry regulators.

Aesica has also been able to migrate its in-house designed software, which governs the batch processing of its products, to the new system easily. As the AC460 is an evolution of the MOD 300 controllers, Aesica could minimise the project time to 10 months, reduce risks in the change over and optimise installation time and costs.

John Moon, control applications engineer for Aesica, said: “Because of the higher memory they give, we will be able to store a greater amount of data more frequently, giving us a more precise view of the process and allowing us to see faster events. We can also store more software if we need to, allowing us to run more vessels and plant. The improved data access will be useful in providing production information for the continuous improvement team of C1, as well as the production support group.”

Another advantage is the improved engineering tools, which allow sequences to be compiled faster, as well as allowing the export of code so that it can be developed on external PCs, said Moon: “The main benefit is that code will be easier to modify, allowing us to switch from making one product to making another more quickly and easily.”