Weighing the high cost of an MES Implementation
There is no question that there is a high initial cost to implementing MES technology, which can give any manufacturer pause. However, carefully weighing the cost of not making the change to a digital format can also be costly.
At a global pharmaceutical facility Huffman Engineering has worked with, the upfront costs of time and money associated with an MES upgrade included building out three system environments to allow for continued production, as well as a development system and a quality system on the front end to allow for quality approval.
This example is, of course, specific to industries that need to meet the requirements of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Current MES technology commonly used in the pharmaceuticals, life sciences and food and beverage industries meet the requirements of GxP (good practice guidelines) and are recognized by ISPE’s GAMP.
This pharmaceutical manufacturer saw the advantages of implementing MES, as the quality standards that need to be met with every batch of medicine are ensured by the compliance and data integrity of MES technology. Other benefits provided by MES include reduced human error, a reduction of personnel to manage paper trails, and an elimination of checks and balances by two verified operators.
And this doesn’t even take into account the loss that could be incurred if a two-inch-wide binder of paper is lost, and an entire batch of medication has to be thrown out because the paper batch record cannot be found. The cost of that product alone could be enough incentive to start tracking and archiving records for audit purposes to free up your personnel to do higher level strategic work rather than pushing paper.
When an MES system can rapidly calculate, verify, prove and archive stringent and ever- changing qualification and validation standards in a fraction of the time it takes a team of people in the document team to do the same job, efficiency alone is a standout measure of improvement.
The value of MES across industry
The good news is: MES can be used across all industrial and utility sectors — and often without such high barriers to entry as are commonly experienced in highly regulated industries like pharmaceuticals. Plus, MES can be implemented initially as a stand-alone system. While you won’t experience the full capabilities and functionality of a fully integrated MES system in this scenario, some organizations choose to start small and build to full integration.
And with the growing consumer demand for more customized products, 72% of manufacturers are investing in flexible manufacturing systems and MES to handle product variations in real time, according to Deloitte.
Over the next decade, the digital transformation of manufacturing will continue to advance with the explosion of artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and robotics. Simultaneously, the necessity of staying ahead of the curve and cataloging the data from your plant floor systems to make wise business decisions will only increase.
Scott Woodward is engineering technical specialist at Huffman Engineering Inc., certified members of the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA). For more information about Huffman Engineering, visit its profile on the Industrial Automation Exchange.
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