Intelligent Decision-Support Tools for Effective and Integrated Operational Planning in Pharmaceutical Plants

Abstract Fierce market competition, peaking patent cliffs, mounting R&D costs, shrinking product pipelines and stringent regulatory protocols have brought a complete paradigm shift in the way pharmaceutical enterprises are operated. Motivated by an immediate need of efficient decision-support aids in pharmaceutical companies, we have devised 2 smart tools: PlanPerfect and DRplan. These tools are designed in association with Singapore based plants of multi-national pharmaceutical companies to find their application for production planning at manufacturing facilities and for requirement planning at distribution hubs. Our tools aid decisions pertinent to (i) campaign lengths with number of batches in each campaign, (ii) campaign sequencing and sequence-dependent cleaning and setups, (iii) plant maintenance, (iv) NCEs testing and production, (v) material outsourcing, (vi) resource allocation, (vii) manpower handling, (viii) inventory management, (ix) plant utilization, (x) waste generation, (xi) generate optimal size and numbers of material orders, (xii) forecast management, and (xiii) requirement planning.