Pharmaceutical Report using Orchestrate Scheduling Software
Company: Wyeth Pharmaceuticals
Modern planning and scheduling software tools are providing invaluable decision support for pharmaceutical process design while optimising production.
Planning and scheduling systems have particular significance in the pharmaceuticals sector. The extremes of process complexity, raw materials management, cost, value and the pace of development and change combine to give these technologies a special place in strategic capacity planning, supply chain planning, as well as operationally to optimise use of resources and production throughput.
As Mike Straiton, director at planning and scheduling software specialist Production Modelling, says: "When a pharma company considers designing a factory, it not only needs to ensure that it has the capacity to meet the weekly demand, but also that it has the flexibility to accommodate developments pre-production. That means ensuring installation of all the right equipment in the right locations at the right time - as well as its efficient use when it comes to scheduling batches of product".
"That's where we come in with our Orchestrate planning software. Orchestrate is used to look at supply chain processes before they become issues. Companies need to plan work now for drugs that may go to market a long way into the future," explains Straiton. "So companies like Wyeth Pharmaceuticals use our systems to help them understand their future global supply chain requirements. Based on estimated market demand, plant production capability, capacity and cost, they can then use Orchestrate to optimise the supply chain to ensure achievement of demand at minimum cost. Individual plants can then use the same software for day-to-day production scheduling."
Brian Kielty, Vaccine Planning Manager at Wyeth's Grange Castle site in Ireland, says this is particularly important for his company since it operates in the biotech end of pharmaceuticals, which is characterised by complex, high value production in very expensive manufacturing facilities -the investment in the Grange Castle site is over $2 billion.
"Orchestrate has proven invaluable in understanding the dynamics of how the different parts of the organisation interact together," he says.
"The software is used right across and at various levels of our organisation, from strategic long term capacity planning to everyday operational planning and scheduling."
"We have a number of validated cGMP systems such as SAP, LIMS, and bespoke weigh and dispense systems, to support production, but their current limitation is finite scheduling," explains Kielty.
"These systems support the tracking and current status of material and operations through the manufacturing cycle, but fail to capture constraints such as trained personnel, equipment and cycle times that need to be considered to execute a work plan in a timely manner."
"Orchestrate has been successful in bridging the gap between these systems and providing feasible robust schedules to supervisors and managers to expedite their respective tasks. Longer term, we believe integrated finite schedules will improve our performance, reduce variability and aid overall cycle time improvements."
