“Honeywell’s intimate knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry and far-reaching expertise in automation and control systems helped Polpharma update and modernize our facility. Competent, experienced and helpful staff in Honeywell’s Warsaw office provided access to global resources with comprehensive knowledge of specific regulations, and their complete suite of solutions met our diverse company needs with tangible results that still continue to exceed our expectations.”
Tomasz Hartuna, Technical Director, Polpharma
In the mid nineties Polpharma, one of the largest Polish drug manufacturers, was looking for a complete solution to help control its ASA production line and eliminate production errors and lost production capacity. What could have been a very complicated technology update went smoothly thanks to Honeywell’s POMS™ solution and Experion® Process Knowledge System (PKS). Having been a PlantScape user, Polpharma took advantage of Honeywell’s hybrid control system for discrete and continuous processes. The company recently upgraded its automation system to Experion PKS helping integrate all business activities across its facility to help ensure maximum profitability and marking the beginning of a long and lasting successful partnership with Honeywell.
Advanced process and automation control improvements, made possible by Honeywell, for Polpharma’s facility include:
A milestone in the company’s history was its privatization in 2000, based solely on Polish capital. The privatization gave a green light for thorough changes, which turned Polpharma into a strong and modern company, and a leader in the Polish pharmaceutical market.
The greatest asset of Polpharma is its experienced and highly skilled staff. Approximately 2,600 people work at the Pharmaceutical Works in Starogard Gdański, in the Trade Office in Warsaw and branches in foreign markets.
In the mid nineties, Polpharma was looking for a solution to control its ASA (acetylsalicylic acid) production line. A big number of production issues and lost production capacity were major reasons to implement a hybrid control system however the employees were reluctant to make a change to automated systems from their manual procedures.
“We needed a technology facelift and one that would help reduce the large number of issues and stop the lost production capacity,” said Tomasz Hartuna, Technical Director, Polpharma. “We also had to overcome the reluctance of some staff accustomed to manual operation of the line and distrust that the new installation could bring any realized benefit.”
For years, Polpharma has had a good relationship with Honeywell having used its PlantScape system. In order to update its facility the company looked at and selected POMS MES to increase performance by ensuring products are manufactured the right way, at the right time, every time. POMS controls and tracks all aspects of production, secures predictable quality, enforces Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and provides a complete history for regulatory compliance. Cycle times are improved, the cost of compliance is reduced, and greater manufacturing responsiveness is achieved.
POMS MES provides materials management from receipt of materials to finished products, asset management (electronic logbooks) and process execution (dispensing operations, manufacturing operations, packaging operations). System data at the facility includes 70 working stations that are integrated with 40 product lines and associated pieces of equipment, including an ERP system. Connectivity to Honeywell’s Uniformance PHD process historian and Experion PKS enables full access to plant data.
“Because our system is continuously upgraded we wanted to expand our MES dispensing functionality to our new ampoules production department,” continued Mr. Hartuna. “We continued the implementation with Honeywell’s Experion PKS in other areas of the company such as fine chemicals production, pilot plant, utilities production and distribution, and waste management.”
The upgrade to Experion PKS has provided a significant number of benefits to operations including improvements in operator efficiency, greater access to plant wide information, improved safety of process operations and increased stability of the process.
The execution of the Polpharma project was a complex one that needed total commitment and responsibility owned by each company involved. Added Mr. Hartuna, “This was the case for all our projects with Honeywell. They are always ready to face new challenges, propose innovative solutions and share the responsibilities for the results.”
Honeywell was chosen due to its proven industry-specific expertise, onsite-support and deployment of a technologically superior solution to help improve process automation.
“Investment in control systems, as well as in production management systems have the shortest pay back period,” said Mr. Hartuna. “When we compared our investments in a Honeywell solution to our detailed analysis done prior to purchase they almost always outperformed our expectations – justifying our decision and demonstrating that real benefits were higher than expected.”