Smart Factory: Digitalizing production facilities

"Smart": We often associate this word with parts of our lives that are becoming more and more efficient through digitalization. And at Boehringer Ingelheim, we’re making our production facilities “smart”, too.

Imagine visiting one of Boehringer Ingelheim’s four biopharmaceutical manufacturing sites without actually being there. It’s possible through a service called "Cloud View Factory" by the BioChina site in Zhangjiang, Shanghai. By photographing a large part of the site with a 360-degree camera and digitally recreating it, virtual visitors can look and move around the facility with simple mouse clicks. On many machines the users can discover, virtual buttons are displayed with their respective names; if you click on them, you get more information.

A room with biopharmaceutical production equipment, as displayed with augmented reality features on a computer or mobile device.

Digitalization shows the way

In these two pictures, we show several aspects that can distinguish non-digitized production facilities from smart factories at Boehringer Ingelheim:

A picture showing a fully non-digitized production facility. — Without the opportunities offered by digitalization and state-of-the-art engineering for the production environment, numerous problems can arise. Above all, efficiency suffers.

A photo showing a fully digitized smart factory, including robotics, sensors and smartglasses. — Smartglasses, sensors, robotics: all of these are part of smart factories at Boehringer Ingelheim. But our colleagues are and will remain just as important in order to continuously optimize patient care.

Automation, augmented reality and artificial intelligence

The "Cloud View Factory" in Shanghai is just one of many digitalization initiatives across Boehringer Ingelheim. From gaining more efficiency through automation and virtual solutions to more flexibility with shorter changeover times in the production process, our colleagues benefit from these. Stefan Kistler, our Head of Factory Innovation and Digital Global Facilities & Engineering, says: "Automation and digitalization eliminate routine activities that are tedious, which makes the job even more interesting, and everyone can do their part to further optimize the care of patients."

A second aspect we’re seeing more of is augmentation, the expansion of reality through virtual tools, like the clickable buttons in the Cloud View Factory and the use of smart glasses in the production environment. “These help with quality control through real-time feedback and can make information appear in the field of view as you work, so you don't have to look at a manual or another screen all the time,” says Stefan. In addition, smart glasses can display information that benefits workplace safety when needed. Virtual audits are also possible with this technology, which reduces travel activities and has been a very valuable alternative, especially during lockdowns.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is another virtual solution that is proving especially helpful in supporting our colleagues in the production environment. "AI can make a valuable contribution to predictive maintenance and optimizing supply chains," says Montse Portella, Head of IT Operations & Laboratories Automation. "For example, it can identify potential problems based on text or photo requests and help people to prevent these." Moreover, the combination and harmonization of very different data points (the so-called data integration) has already proven its worth through major cost savings.

Digitalizing the production plants: Everything is interconnected

Also according to Stefan Kistler, the real decisive step forward triggered by the digitalization of the production process is ultimately exactly that kind of networking of all areas on the base of data. "There are countless possibilities in a production plant to collect data digitally, for example with the help of sensors. Thanks to networking, we can observe the process as a whole in real time and intervene very quickly if potential problems become apparent or production requirements change. This ensures enormous transparency and risk minimization." Numerous colleagues, especially from the globally organized Facilities & Engineering and IT departments, make this possible in cross-functional cooperation at production sites worldwide. "It's great to be able to work at this interface and to have people with the expertise needed directly in the company," says Montse.

However, what is at least as important as the technical implementation itself, Hao Li says with conviction during our conversation, is the associated cultural change. "Being part of this big transformation is really interesting, but we all have to actively contribute and get involved." Yes, this is complex and solutions to emerging challenges must always be found. "But that's exactly what makes working in the production environment even more interesting, and in the end we are able to help even more patients through the increased efficiency." For the moment, the possibilities in the future seem unlimited – that’s for sure.