The road to intelligent manufacturing: Ruijie builds a simple and efficient production network foundation for pharmaceutical companies

In recent years, with the accelerated advancement of the coordinated reform of the three medical systems and the gradual implementation of normalized epidemic prevention and control measures, the survival environment of pharmaceutical companies has changed, and the industry will inevitably usher in a reshaping of the landscape after the reshuffle.

On the one hand, the aging population is aggravating and residents' medical needs are rising. According to the forecast of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, the scale of my country's pharmaceutical market will grow at a rate of 14%-17%, and the industry scale is expected to exceed 5.3 trillion yuan by 2025; on the other hand, under the general trend of "medical insurance cost control", the profit space of generic drugs is further compressed, and the dividend has peaked. The traditional extensive model relying on high-priced generic drugs and single drugs will give way to an innovation-driven model of "product is king".

In this context, the digital transformation of pharmaceutical companies is imperative. However, due to the weak digital foundation of the traditional pharmaceutical industry, the overall digitalization level of the industry is still in its infancy. The release of the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Pharmaceutical Industry" has pointed out a clear path for pharmaceutical companies to transform - through sustainable innovation capabilities and the application of new generation information technology to build smart pharmaceutical factories.

How to accumulate digital capabilities and use data and tools to reduce costs and increase efficiency has become the core of pharmaceutical companies' digital exploration. However, in the process, facing the needs of production quality management and production digitalization, pharmaceutical companies still face many pain points in the digital upgrade and transformation of production networks, especially clean workshops.

Transformation of pharmaceutical companies: the pain of digital transformation of production networks

The network applications in pharmaceutical companies' production workshops have distinct industry attributes.

First of all, according to the Good Manufacturing Practice for Pharmaceuticals (revised in 2010), the cleanliness requirements divided into four levels, A, B, C, and D, run through multiple automated production scenarios such as biological culture, purification, biological preparations, and filling.

(Standards for the division of clean areas in pharmaceutical factories)

Furthermore, the clean workshop network needs to support the networking needs of various different brands of equipment, such as industrial computers, handheld industrial tablet mobile devices, and fixed production machine terminals.

The most critical thing is that no matter in the technical transformation of old workshops or the construction of new workshops, the network construction project of clean workshops will face its own difficulties.

In the technical transformation of the old workshop:

l The network system needs to perform “operations” such as punching holes, threading pipes, threading wires, and sealing on the existing color steel plates, causing the production line to stop production;

l The network system transformation construction process is costly and takes a long time ;

l Some production equipment does not have network ports, has weak wireless performance, and has insufficient networking capabilities;

l After the transformation , cleanliness certification needs to be carried out again , and the business is slow to go online.

In the new workshop scenario:

l How to install and deploy APs, especially APs in Class A clean areas, has become a prominent issue . This is because traditional panel-type APs protrude from the surface of the color steel plate, which does not meet the requirements for workshop disinfection and wiping , and the indicator lights and heat dissipation holes of ceiling-mounted APs do not meet the workshop cleanliness certification requirements ;

Newly built workshops are generally large in area, and the network transmission distance is limited to 100 meters of wiring, so multiple weak current rooms need to be maintained ;

l Some production equipment does not have network ports, has weak wireless performance, and has insufficient networking capabilities;

l With the subsequent changes and expansion of network services, the same problems as in the above-mentioned old workshop technical transformation scenario will be faced.

(Traditional panel APs do not meet the cleanliness requirements of the workshop)

In response to these issues, Ruijie Networks recently officially released the wireless solution for clean workshops of pharmaceutical companies, providing a new solution for pharmaceutical companies to smoothly promote the digital transformation of production networks.

Ruijie's solution: a way to empower pharmaceutical companies to move forward

At the press conference, Lei Chunming, Director of Enterprise Industry Solutions at Ruijie Networks, described in detail the pain points that pharmaceutical companies face in the transformation of their production networks. He further pointed out: "From the entire process, we can see that if a pharmaceutical company's workshop wants to transform from the original manual, paper-based production to an automated, information-based, digital, and intelligent production process, it will face great challenges at the bottom level (digital infrastructure construction)."

Ruijie Networks' wireless solution for clean spaces in pharmaceutical companies directly addresses the above pain points. By integrating the advantages of its full range of "cloud, network, and terminal" products, it realizes the three major values ​​of wireless networks: "ultra-simple deployment and fast compliance", "uninterrupted mobile production", and "real-time wireless data acquisition".

Specifically, this solution consists of three major product arrays: cloud network access authentication management platform and WIS cloud management platform, campus network switches and a full range of wireless products, and industrial switches and industrial wireless gateways.

On this basis, an overall architecture was built including the enterprise production management system, Ruijie industrial wireless network, Ruijie industrial data collection, and production execution.

Its main value is reflected in three aspects:

"Extremely simple deployment and fast compliance": Ruijie Network's "industrial-grade directional AP" plus "Extremely simple Ethernet optics" are a solid guarantee for this solution to achieve "Extremely simple deployment and fast compliance".

The signal strength of industrial-grade directional AP penetrating color steel plate reaches -45dBm. By deploying one AP in the mezzanine above the color steel plate in each clean room, the old workshop color steel plate can be saved from drilling/piping/threading/sealing, ensuring that the production line does not stop. At the same time, the construction is fast and there is no need for cleanliness re-certification. The overall cost is low, the construction period is short, and the service is put into operation quickly. In the newly built BCD-level clean area of ​​the workshop, ceiling AP (acrylic cover + seal) can be used to achieve rapid network deployment in the clean area.

The application of Ruijie's simplified Ethernet optical technology, including Ethernet optical host and Ethernet optical AP, in this solution saves the weak current room for clean workshop network deployment (the wiring length of optical-electrical hybrid cable is up to 1,500 meters), while bringing higher AP performance (1/5/10Gbps) and lower failure rate.

"Uninterrupted mobile production" : Traditional wireless roaming has an average delay of 300ms, an overall packet loss rate of 2%, and continuous packet loss . This often results in production personnel holding industrial tablets and having a poor user experience where the tablet software interface often "spins in circles" or "auto-logs out" when they are working in several nearby clean rooms.

The AI ​​Radio based on Ruijie AR series AP can actively detect the terminal signal status and select the best AP to guide the terminal wireless roaming. The average delay is <30ms, the overall packet loss rate is <0.5%, and there is no continuous packet loss , which can easily achieve industrial zero roaming. Through "zero" packet loss wireless fast roaming, service-free experience and MES operation efficiency improvement, it can ensure that the mobile production of pharmaceutical companies is not interrupted.

"Wireless data acquisition can be real-time" : Ruijie industrial-grade wireless gateways certified by China Telecommunication Technology Laboratory, an authoritative network equipment evaluation organization in China, are used , with an overall packet loss rate of ≤ 1/10,000 and an average delay of ≤ 10ms . In addition to Ruijie Network's powerful industrial wireless network and industrial gateway, it also uses anti-interference and highly reliable 2.4G+5G dual-radio link aggregation technology, and supports serial/network port to wireless, which can easily achieve stable and reliable real-time collection of wireless data.

In addition to the three major values, this solution also performs well in terms of security and operation and maintenance efficiency. Through cloud collaboration with the WIS cloud management platform, it realizes dynamic intelligent prediction of wireless security risks and active defense, as well as visual wireless intelligent diagnosis and network optimization and maintenance. According to statistics, using this solution, wireless production network security incidents and user complaints can be reduced by 80%, the administrator's operation and maintenance efficiency can be improved by 100%, and the fault location time can be shortened from 3 hours to 1 minute, providing strong support for the efficient and safe operation of wireless networks.

Conclusion

At the press conference, Li Weichuan, technical director of Beijing Chengyitong Control Engineering Technology Co., Ltd., mentioned that in 2020, the State Food and Drug Administration issued the "Good Manufacturing Practice for Pharmaceuticals (Revised in 2010)", which put forward clear regulations on the quality production and data tracking management of biological products and drugs.

"There are clear requirements for real-time data capture during the vaccine production process and subsequent drug quality tracking. Therefore, all pharmaceutical companies are now upgrading their smart manufacturing to meet their own needs for innovation and development and ensure compliance management requirements."

As the country strengthens drug supervision and adjusts the structure of the pharmaceutical industry, more and more pharmaceutical companies are beginning to realize the importance of digital transformation. To achieve digital transformation, it is necessary to formulate a successful digital transformation strategy, and to build a digital infrastructure that fits one's actual situation is the cornerstone. The ultimate goal of digital transformation for every enterprise is to achieve business transformation based on technology and achieve data-driven business innovation and growth.