The deal, financial terms of which have not been divulged, will see GE add Emerson’s DeltaV distributed control system to its FlexFactory range of single-use technologies in order to help biopharmaceutical makers increase productivity and improve efficiency, according to the two firms.
“The integrated database is a clear example of reduced complexity / risk and is one of the biggest headaches in the industry,” Jerry Brown, SVP of industry solutions for Emerson told Biopharma-Reporter. “Version management and change control (audit trail) has been a long-standing DeltaV feature that is highly valued in reducing the cost and complexity of compliance.”
Emmanuel Ligner, Global Commercial Manager for Bioprocessing at GE, added the system offers “consistent user experience, a standard library of control software, and one point of contact for issues with hardware and software [which] can all contribute to more efficient working processes.”
According to Ligner, the added technology will help healthcare providers and the biopharmaceutical industry tackle growing pressures in the sector.
“Emerson and GE share a vision that an integrated and automated approach to manufacturing has the potential to help drive improvements in production efficiency of these life-saving medicines… Controlling all elements of bioprocessing manufacturing via a single control platform has obvious benefits from both an operational and engineering perspective.”
Brown continued: “Automation is a key driver in enforcing procedures to assure the quality of the medicines, as well as controlling the process equipment and providing oversight of people and operations.”
He also added that for the end user “there will be minimal impact on price, but a very positive impact on longer-term life cycle costs – for example, a unified architecture is easier to engineer and support.”
The development work for this project is being done at the GE FlexFactory production facility in Massachusetts with support from both GE and Emerson team members as needed.