Safety and compliance are non-negotiable in the fine chemicals industry, which produces complex, pure chemical substances such as active pharmaceutical ingredients. Fine chemicals are batch driven, with complicated, multistage processes where accuracy and efficiency are critical. 

In this industry, one of the keys to ensuring both safety and compliance is that measurements taken throughout the production process are accurate, which can be challenging to say the least with paper-based calibration. Paper-based calibration is time consuming and because it relies on manual data entry, prone to errors.

A Tale of Three Steves

Stephen Jerge, Calibration Supervisor for Lonza Biologics, a multinational chemical and biotechnology company, recently walked attendees of the Beamex Annual Calibration Exchange (ACE) through the project he headed to transition from a paper-based calibration management system (CMS) to an integrated, digital, paperless solution using Beamex CMX. Steve has over 30 years of calibration experience in the telecommunication and pharmaceutical industries.

Over the last 3 years, his primary focus has been contributing to Lonza’s global paperless SAP/CMX integrated solution through implementation, training, and supporting calibration operations and expansion projects.

Watch the presentation video recording now!

In this blog post, we’ll share The Tale of Three Steve’s as we follow his journey from 2017 Steve, a stressed-out, overworked supervisor; to 2019 Steve as he underwent the rollout of a new, automated system; to Steve 2021, whose focus is on continuous improvement.

Many businesses still use a lot of manual entry in their industrial processes.

This is despite the fact that it is commonly known and accepted that it is a slow and labor-intensive process and there are always human errors related to manual data entry - Human errors are natural.

It is commonly accepted that the typical error rate in manual data entry is about 1 %.

What does this 1 % mean in practice in calibration processes, and how can you make it smaller, or even get rid of it?

This article mainly focuses on industrial calibration processes and the manual data entry related to these processes.

Many calibration technicians follow long-established procedures at their facility that have not evolved with instrumentation technology. Years ago, maintaining a performance specification of ±1% of span was difficult, but today’s instrumentation can easily exceed that level on an annual basis. In some instances, technicians are using old test equipment that does not meet new technology specifications. This article focuses on establishing base line performance testing where analysis of calibration parameters (mainly tolerances, intervals and test point schemes) can be analyzed and adjusted to meet optimal performance. Risk considerations will also be discussed – regulatory, safety, quality, efficiency, downtime and other critical parameters. A good understanding of these variables will help in making the best decisions on how to calibrate plant process instrumentation and how to improve outdated practices.

Process instrument calibration is just one of the many maintenance related activities in a process plant. The last thing you want to do is to have your limited resources wasting time performing unnecessary calibrations or using time-consuming, ineffective calibration procedures.

Yet, you need to make sure that all critical calibrations are completed, ensuring the site stays running efficiently with minimal downtime, product quality is maintained, while the plant remains regulatory and safety compliant, and audit-ready.