5th Production Bioreactor

5th Production Bioreactor

Industry: Life Sciences
Project Type: Manufacturing Capacity Expansion | Automation | Batch Systems | Validation

Project Overview

A leading biopharmaceutical manufacturer made process improvements that raised downstream throughput, and upstream production became the bottleneck. To relieve it, the facility added a fifth 12,500-liter production bioreactor, which had to be integrated with four existing production trains without disrupting validated manufacturing operations.

Matrix Technologies was the automation and controls integration partner from the initial impact assessment through production startup. Matrix worked closely with the client's engineering and operations teams on the control system changes needed to bring the new bioreactor into service with minimal disruption.

Scope of Work

• Automation impact assessment and functional and detailed design specifications
• Process Control System modifications and ControlLogix PLC programming
• FactoryTalk View SE HMI development and FactoryTalk Batch configuration
• FactoryTalk Historian integration and SQL database and reporting development
• Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT)
• Validation protocol development and execution
• Instrument loop checks, commissioning, and startup support
• 24/7 hypercare during the initial production batches

Project Results

The new bioreactor is part of the client's existing automation architecture and validated environment. Upstream capacity now keeps pace with downstream demand, and ongoing manufacturing saw minimal disruption during the project. Matrix provided dedicated support through the first five commercial batches, which sped up production readiness.