In a pharma industry, it is critical to maintain and execute safe machine operation for obvious reasons. It ensures high degree of product safety, safe workplace, and moreover increases the company's reputation. It also enables a pharma company to stand as a reliable, complaint and resourceful entity among its peers
In pharma industry, when hazard occurs, it not only damages the machine or pose danger to personnel working, it also poses danger to the product due to the sensitivity of the product. In this case, the production process has to be repeated again by discarding the product produced. This situation causes financial damage to the pharma manufacturer. Additional damages include loss of infrastructure, equipment and workforce.
Hazards related to pharma equipment
There are different hazards in the pharma industry, but in this article we will focus on hazard related to pharma equipment.
Let's discuss some of these
Moving parts
Moving part is the most common hazard in the pharma industry, due to its mechanical nature. Commonly, moving parts are hidden behind the main structure and are effectively protected. However for some moving parts this cannot be fully isolated from human interaction. The main reason is that these moving parts require continuous manual adjustment during production process for their operation
These hazard have the following impact
It can cut off a body part such a finger or toe, and can also slash a human skin
Movie part can crash with human body resulting in severe damage
It can damage other machine parts and can result in high maintenance cost and breakdown
Loss of product or packaging material
Example of moving parts in an equipment include the following
Sealing station in blister package machine where a foil is sealed by the action of upper and lower sealing plates.
Filling machine where are star wheel or turret move bottles from infield, and then to the outfeed, after filling
Over temperature
In pharma industry equipment, temperature has a critical role in the execution of different process, where temperature is required at different processes to achieve desired qualities and properties in a final product.
In some condition the temperature in an equipment becomes uncontrolled, and rises above the set point, and there is no method to stop it. In this scenario, it is a great hazard to man, machine and material and dangerously affects them
When this hazard occurs it can
Burn the material of contact.
If liquid is involved it can increase the temperature of liquid and will evaporate it
It can also cause explosion in the attached machine
It will change the product characteristics, which will cause it to be discarded
Some example of this hazard can be as follows
In autoclave, where temperature is required for sterilization in a product container. In this condition, temperature of chamber will increase above its normal threshold limit and will explode the chamber
In A FBD, specific temperature is required to remove the moisture content in the material. In over-temperature condition the material will over dry and will damage the material properties
Heated parts
Heated parts in pharmaceutical equipment is common where temperature is involved. In this condition, the outer body part can be easily harm the human body.
Example of heated parts consist of
Blister packaging machine were plates of sealing station remain hot during machine operation
Outer body of autoclave during and after stabilization process.
Electrical hazard
Electrical hazard it is also the most common hazard in all manufacturing industries including the Pharmaceutical. It's main reason is t...
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