Flow, level & control D
REDUCING FLUID CONTROL AND AUTOMATION COMPLEXITY IN PHARMA PROCESS DEVELOPMENT
esigning and building new pharmaceutical processes or skids is complex and expensive. Precise control must be scaled to ensure high productivity and achieve the regulatory hygiene standard, with the process validated by accurate data. For OEMs in the pharma sector to optimise across these areas, the coordination of their design and installation engineering teams is essential.
Designing and installing a new pharmaceutical process typically involves several teams. This includes mechanical engineers that deal with pipework, vessels and valves; electrical and instrumentation engineers that take care of valve control and electrical installation; and automation engineers that are responsible for the control concept and implementation.
PROJECT COORDINATION CHALLENGES While each of the disciplines has distinct objectives and timelines, aligning the mechanical, electrical and instrumentation, and automation teams is essential. However, project scale and its complexity make coordination of these teams a demanding task. The first phase of development is often the most crucial from a
Designing and building pharmaceutical processes or skids demands close coordination between mechanical, electrical and instrumentation, and automation engineering teams. Fragmented design and vendor selection can introduce challenges in integration and validation. Aligning these disciplines through compatible hardware, automation, and measurement technologies can reduce risks in development and accelerate time to market. Damien Moran, industry account manager for Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology, explains an efficient development route.
coordination perspective as challenges emerging at this point can have long-term implications that are more difficult to change. Key to this stage is vendor selection, with compatibility in hardware, software and controls, and associated services integral to the success over a project’s full term. As each team proceeds with design, specifying the components they need from approved vendors to deliver their section of the project, the most important criterion is achieving precise control at the process level. Process valves, flow meters, and control systems may each meet their required individual specifications, but differences in response times or control and communication interfaces can introduce small mismatches that decrease the precision and
repeatability of the overall process. This makes exacting compatibility of control hardware and automation architecture essential to optimise process quality.
RELIABILITY AND COMPLIANCE Even when the desired process quality is reached, achieving productivity means throughput matched with reliability. Here, again, challenges in compatibility can, over time, increase the potential of maintenance issues, and the most significant problem is downtime. When a maintenance challenge develops, the involvement of multiple vendors also increases the time and complexity of diagnosis. Resolving any issues could also demand the coordination
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June 2026 Instrumentation Monthly
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