More than just SCADA

The pharma industry is one of the world’s most consistently growing industries. Pharma companies are bound by a multitude of regulations and standards. Implementing innovation in this fast-growing industry faces numerous challenges every day in terms of safety, traceability, and data availability. Today’s pharma companies face significant manufacturing challenges, including standards compliance and traceability to detect errors immediately. To meet these requirements, many pharma companies rely on a well-established approach: SCADA systems.

Today, a new generation of requirements has pharma companies looking for new solutions. Data acquisition is no longer enough, and factories are demanding faster and more accurate solutions with capabilities for energy monitoring, condition-based predictive maintenance, MES/ERP connectivity, reporting, and advanced analytics. In today’s fast-growing industry, large corporations are looking for a single-source solution and an integrated approach to leverage existing capabilities, and be ready for the future.

Data-driven SCADA system

Data is the new science. The world is now awash in data, which helps consumer needs be identified more accurately. Industries are looking for techniques and solutions to analyse data easily, quickly, and securely. To do this, they need a system that combines all the little data into one process. Futuristic manufacturing techniques are the hallmark of an excellent pharma facility. The pharma industry thrives on integrating such systems and techniques into its operations. SCADA represents one of the most significant advancements of the past and has helped shape today’s manufacturing industry.

The pharmaceutical industry has realised the importance of this system that allows them to analyse, implement and identify errors if they find any. Pharma companies spend a large portion of their revenue on protecting their data. Despite the market being flooded with various SCADA systems, they are looking for a secure network system. B&R India, a leading manufacturer of industrial products and a reliable partner, has recognised the security gap in the pharmaceutical industry. That’s why they have packaged important innovations for the pharmaceutical industry in a solution called PharmaEdge. This system supports FDA compliance and 21 CFR Part 11 and is aligned with the needs of Industry 4.0.

Solution built just for pharma

To meet the demands of the pharma industry, B&R has developed an integrated single-PC solution for monitoring and controlling the entire operational process that also meets the increasing requirements of FDA compliance, one of the fundamental benchmarks for pharma manufacturers. PharmaEdge offers all the benefits of SCADA and a robust control system in one device. In short, it is a one-stop solution with the ability to add energy monitoring, condition-based predictive maintenance, and MES/ERP connectivity. It also enables the implementation of smart machines for the future of the industry. The integrated PharmaEdge solution helps users optimize the performance of their automation systems while improving cost and energy efficiency. Instead of using separate control systems for process control, SCADA, energy monitoring and condition monitoring, users get all these functions in a single integrated system with built-in cybersecurity. With this innovative one-box solution, users in factories can monitor and control their entire operation with a single system.

The unique PharmaEdge solution consists of a B&R industrial PC running a hypervisor solution with Linux and B&R’s real-time operating system, providing easy access to machine and process automation libraries for easy configuration. There are no restrictions on internal tags and no incremental costs for additional tags. The PharmaEdge solution’s built-in features support easy reporting and historical data retrieval. Several additional features such as access protection, protected data archiving and retrieval, electronic signature, easy batch reporting, user-friendly audit trail and change management, to name a few, make this solution even more trustworthy. The PharmaEdge solution is OPC-enabled with seamless connectivity to MES/ERP/EBMR and easy cloud connectivity via MQTT. It also has simplified dashboards for easy data analysis. It is compatible with standard browsers or mobile devices and consists of iOS and Android apps that provide access to dashboards and reports. This solution is user-friendly and easy to use and is designed primarily for the challenges faced by pharma companies.