Best Practices To Advance End-Of-Line Packaging Operations
By Tom Egan, vice president, Industry Services, PMMI
End-of-line packaging — the point at which primary packages are grouped for shipment — has become increasingly complex for pharmaceutical manufacturers in recent years, largely affected by changes in serialization requirements on labeling and inspection.
Implementing and maintaining a set of best practices is vital to a smooth end-of-line operation. By enhancing operational agility and flexibility, making equipment purchase decisions based on total cost of ownership (TCO), and forming partnerships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), pharmaceutical manufacturers can improve this part of their packaging line.
The Importance Of Being Agile
Pharmaceutical companies are feeling the pressure from impending regulations to improve track-and-trace capabilities throughout the supply chain. Mandates from the Drug Quality and Security Act of 2013 include serialization of all prescription products throughout the U.S. supply chain by Nov. 27, 2017. The updated serialization capabilities will require data carriers, such as 2D barcodes or RFID tags, to hold an increasingly large amount of data – product codes, lot number, batch number, timestamps, and global trade identification numbers (GTINs). Globally, requirements continue to evolve, and, given the uncertain regulatory future, manufacturers would benefit from investing in packaging solutions that can adapt to tomorrow’s demands.
For end-of-line packaging, this specifically relates to the printed serialized information on secondary and tertiary packaging. Manufacturers must be able to label each sellable unit, carton, case, and pallet with a unique serial number and then aggregate the data to accurately capture the packaging hierarchy. In linking these units together this way, manufacturers avoid opening cases and scanning each product as it moves through the supply chain. The aggregation process creates a vast amount of data, and pharmaceutical companies can benefit substantially from maintaining a global, centralized communications infrastructure that can securely store and transfer the serialized data through their global supply chains.
Weigh Costs And Payoffs
When making purchasing decisions for end-of-line packaging equipment, it is essential to consider TCO. The three fundamental components of TCO are the costs for acquisition, sustaining, and maintenance. Acquisition costs include the purchase price, together with engineering, installation, initial training, customization, and start-up. Sustaining costs refer to any operational expenditure, such as labor, utilities, and consumables. Any repairs needed over the machine’s lifetime, including associated spare parts, maintenance labor, and decommissioning expenses fall under maintenance costs. At its core, TCO means taking into account all factors that may have an impact on expenses over the machine’s lifetime – even those that are less obvious. It means looking beyond the initial price of the system, which can, over time, represent a mere fraction of the total cost of the machine. For a best-practices-based method for calculating TCO, visit PMMI.org/Alliance, the online home of PMMI’s Alliance for Innovation and Operational Excellence (AIOE).
Purchasing = Partnership
Pharmaceutical manufacturers should view their supplier relationships as partnerships. That’s true whether the manufacturer is investing in a retrofit, an individual piece of equipment, or an entire line. As in any relationship, communication is critical from the beginning.
To achieve this partnership, pharmaceutical manufacturers and their OEMs must collaborate early on in the acquisition process. When they do so, the OEM can fully understand and address its customer’s short- and long-term goals — which often present entirely different sets of considerations. For example, a pharmaceutical company that hopes to broaden its product offering in the future will benefit from a machine with the flexibility to change tooling to handle different product sizes. Likewise, if a pharmaceutical company hopes to increase the speed of their line at some point down the road, then the OEM can provide a machine that is compatible with that future goal.
Shop Smart
Trade shows are important resources for pharmaceutical companies looking for the latest technologies to advance end-of-line packaging operations, as they offer a unique opportunity to see and compare equipment in person. Trade show attendees frequently discover something new and innovative happening in their industry or find a solution from another industry that might apply to their own operations.
Attendees who want to make the most of their time at a trade show should visit the show’s website to determine the exhibitors they wish to visit. Setting up appointments with exhibitors ahead of time is a great way to ensure the correct exhibitor team is present to address a customer’s specific needs and expectations. It also helps to have multiple team members on hand to examine the equipment from different perspectives — engineering and procurement, for example.
This September’s Pharma EXPO, co-located with PACK EXPO Las Vegas (Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada; September 28–30, 2015), and co-produced by PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, and ISPE, the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering, will be the destination for pharmaceutical manufacturers looking to bolster their end-of-line operations. In addition to the aisles filled with innovations and equipment, attendees will also find valuable educational programming. The Innovation Stage, Reusables Learning Center, Food Safety Summit Resource Center, and the Center for Trends and Technology all feature discussions on the latest trends and best practices in the industry.
About PMMI
PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, is a trade association representing more than 700 companies that provide a full range of processing and packaging machinery, materials, components, and containers. PMMI actively brings buyers and sellers together through initiatives such as packexpo.com, educational programs, and world-class events that connect participants in the processing and packaging supply chain with their customers around the world.
PMMI produces the PACK EXPO portfolio of trade shows, which includes EXPO PACK México 2015, (June 16–19, Mexico City); PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2015 (Sept. 28-30, Las Vegas Convention Center); Pharma EXPO, co-located with PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2015.
PMMI owns PMMI Media Group, a market-leading B2B media company that produces information for processing and packaging professionals, bringing together solution providers and end-users and facilitating connectivity throughout the supply chain. Its world class media brands — Packaging World, Automation World, Healthcare Packaging, Contract Packaging, and Packaging + Processing OEM— are proven leaders in covering this diverse and dynamic marketplace, and its digital products incorporate leading edge media technologies to deliver informed, actionable business intelligence to the industry. PMMI Media Group also produces The Automation Conference, an annual education and networking forum, which takes place in Chicago each spring.
Learn more at pmmi.org , packexpo.com, and pmmimediagroup.com.