Granulation Area Capacity Increase

Abstract

Manufacturing pharmaceuticals are continuously looking for waste reduction to improve their processes and increase the manufacturing output. Granulation area capacity increase was evaluated for a solid dosage pharmaceutical industry in Las Piedras (LP), Puerto Rico. Volume increase for a pharmaceutical product is driving additional capacity requirement for granulation. Also, it was required to eliminate non-value added (NVA) tasks during the granulation activities. DMAIC process and its tools were used to increase the granulation capacity. Kaizen principles, process mapping and cycle efficiency, among others were used, providing a high-level view of the value stream being targeted in the improvement. Improvements such as new Ways of Working (WOW) to run two batches in parallel among others were actions implemented to granulation product capacity increase. As results of this project, the business benefits were a cost benefit of time saving 27% cycle time, representing 36 lots/month with a revenue of $1,947,886 per month.