Faking It Isn't All Bad
“There just never seems enough time to get everything done. Process engineers and biochemists like me always seem to be under-the-gun to get results out and quickly move processes from pilot to full scale manufacturing. Isn’t there something that can make our lives easier?”
Walt Boyes and Nancy Bartels of Control magazine hear these entreaties all the time. In the October issue of Control they offer up process simulation as a way to speed up process evaluation and/or keep track of a complicated process where direct process measurements may be difficult or complex.
"Faking It Isn't All Bad" (198KB PDF) features two major advances by Emerson’s advanced control group. Terry Blevins is working with a host of folks in the bioscience area to develop and publish information on the modeling of mammalian cell culture. This modeling technique promises to dramatically reduce the time and cost to determine optimum cell culture conditions. It also promises to cut time to full scale operation of these complicated batch bioprocesses. Terry and team are also working with Lubrizol to develop a process history of complicated batch processes that will permit extraction of a few key indicators that can predict the “health” of an ongoing batch to permit timely operator intervention. This technique will lead to better quality produced despite the impact of a host of process parameters. If you could benefit from state-of-the-art simulation techniques, this piece could point you to solutions that may save you time and headaches.
