Food and beverage automation: Two levels of advancement

From Food Processing: Food processors continue to chase beverage manufacturers when it comes to robotics and automation implementation in their plants, but they’re closing fast as technology advances.

Andy Hanacek writes:

Over the last decade-plus, food and beverage processors have installed plenty of automation to help make their products faster, with top-line efficiency and a sharp focus on safety of both the product and the workforce. Still, various segments of the industry remain in the fledgling stages of reaping the benefits of these technologies.

In fact, it’s almost a tale of two cities, says Ozan Ozaskinli, partner and managing director for Value Gene Consulting Group.

“On the beverage side, there’s much more automation and robotics users — we see 80-85 percent of the process automated — because it is much easier to automate the beverage process,” he says. “On the food side, however, from automation perspective, it’s really lagging behind, with closer to an average of 10-15 percent of the processes truly automated.”

Read the entire article HERE.

Mergers, layoffs and geopolitical risk reshape the chemical industry

From Chemical Processing: Olin and Huntsman announce a $12.5 billion tie-up, Evonik cuts 3,200 jobs and BASF's CEO warns of an oil shock — while Covestro bets on biology to clean up aniline production.

Jonathan Katz recaps the top strories in the chemical processing industry in the latest episode of the Distilled podcast. Listen below.

FDA picks seven companies for PreCheck pilot program including two CDMOs

From Pharma Manufacturing: The FDA selected contract manufacturers Cellares and Fujifilm Biotechnologies, as well as Big Pharma drugmakers Eli Lilly and Regeneron, for the agency's initial PreCheck pilot cohort.

Greg Slabodkin writes:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced the selection of seven companies to participate in its PreCheck pilot program as an initial cohort of new pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities.

Chosen from more than 80 applicants, the list of participants includes Big Pharma companies Eli Lilly and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, as well as contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) Cellares and Fujifilm Biotechnologies. Other companies selected for the pilot program are Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Kriya Therapeutics, and Kyowa Kirin.   

“The pilot program is intended to support the development of new U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities by encouraging earlier FDA engagement and providing a more predictable regulatory pathway for companies that plan to manufacture drugs for the U.S. market, helping support greater access to critical medicines for Americans,” according to the agency’s announcement. 

Read the entire article HERE.

Large pipe flow measurement: large sensors or small meters?

From Control: Dual-tube architecture opens the door to more accurate, cost-effective and hybrid flow measurement systems.

Jesse Yoder writes:

Flow measurement in large pipes presents a challenge for many types of flowmeters. Coriolis meters become heavier, more unwieldy, and more expensive as the line sizes they are measuring increase.

Vortex meters face similar issues. As line sizes increase, bluff bodies grow larger and vortex shedding frequencies decrease. Ultrasonic meters do better as line sizes increase, but large acoustic path lengths may weaken the signal. Both clamp-on and insertion ultrasonic meters address the issue of line size, but their performance does not typically rise to the level of inline meters.

Read the entire article HERE:

Recapping the week on Processing

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