Accelerated adoption of automation and digitalisation within Medicines Manufacturing: workshop and report

There are a number of reasons why automation and digitalisation are needed within Medicines Manufacturing in the UK:

• To improve efficiency and remove bottlenecks
• To support in process monitoring controls
• To support data analysis
• To combine and use data and metadata
• To gather information from across the supply chain

However, despite these opportunities the UK continues to lag behind other countries in the deployment and utilisation of automation and digitalisation.

To  understand why this is the case, and to explore how the sector can take on board ideas and technology from outside of the field, an in-person workshop was held at the AMRC (Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre) North West on the 30th March, where attendees from 20 organisations involved in Medicines Manufacturing explored robotics and automated systems in the development space, using KTN’s Digital Maturity Framework as a benchmark to understand companies’ current position, where they would like to progress to, how they can move forward, and where further intervention or investment is needed.

The following report summarises the workshop’s content and outcomes.  You can also watch a short video from the workshop here.

This was a follow-on workshop from a virtual stakeholder consultation event, held in February, where over 40 individuals participated, from companies from across the industry, representing academia and industrial catapults.  This event identified a number of key areas for further attention, including Integration and interoperability; Data and Skills.  A summary report of this event can be found here.