global agrees treatment plan with major pharmaceuticals company
global associates has agreed a new scheduled maintenance contract with a major pharmaceuticals company. The PPM agreement involves site visits every three months, whereby any BMS faults reported by the client will be thoroughly investigated and resolved.
The site is comprised of a total of nine buildings operating a mix of Trend and Niagara based BMS controllers which control pharmaceutical laboratories, packaging facilities and general office areas, with each building specialising in different parts of the medication manufacturing process.
During each planned visit, every controller on site is checked through to ensure that it is operating correctly and to ensure that the plant being controlled is functioning as required. These checks are vital as this helps highlight any potential issues with the BMS controller or associated I/O modules which may compromise the client meeting targets.
The work includes checking the readings from sensors, states of digital inputs and the plant’s ability to control to respective setpoints. Owing to the site being of a pharmaceutical nature, control of temperature, humidity and pressure is vital to ensure the medication produced possess no risk to the customer.
All plant is closely monitored throughout these PPM visits so as not to cause any disruption and being monitored in an operational state helps identify any issues in achieving respective control parameters, such as defective valve actuators, failed sensors or physical failure of plant itself.
Issues highlighted are either rectified during the visit or referred to the site engineering team. Components relating to the BMS (e.g. sensors and actuators) are then quoted for replacement while any plant which could have failed (e.g. pumps and fans) is dealt with by the client who will arrange for contractors to attend.
As visits are solely for the purpose of servicing the plant, new parts are rarely installed during these visits with this occurring on separately arranged remedial days. If a component failure does severely compromise the operation of the plant and it can be sourced in time, a replacement component will be installed. This will generally be a like for like replacement for the failed device owing to the client’s requirements and GMP regulations. Any major deviation from the existing device requires a client ‘change control’.
In the pharmaceutical industry, equipment failure can be particularly costly as it has the potential to impact the entire manufacturing process. global’s role in highlighting potential failures early will undoubtedly minimise risk and allow for replacements to be put in place before breakdowns occur.
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