Asset Tracking in a Clean-Room Biotech Manufacturing Facility

WISER's asset tracking system plays a pivotal role in elevating quality control, streamlining operations, and minimizing asset loss across various industries. The system efficiently locates and tracks assets in real-time, providing autonomous status reports. This is particularly crucial in biotech settings where stringent parameters, such as temperature, humidity, location, and proximity, significantly impact the safety and viability of sensitive assets like assays, subject to expiring timelines.

THE PROBLEM: MANAGING SENSITIVE, PERISHABLE INVENTORY

A leading pharmaceutical manufacturer employs a first-in, first-out (FIFO) approach for batch tracking to optimize shelf life. Traditional business process labels, such as barcodes, fell short in efficacy owing to the uniform appearance of over 500 stainless steel carts utilized for storing the bulk solution. The carts’ reflective surfaces furthermore interfered with the barcode reader, which compromised accuracy and reliability. Moreover, the company needed a way to further delineate the contents of each container, given the diverse solutions manufactured.

Tracing parameters typically changed with each step of a production process, making asset monitoring even more difficult. For instance, assays might need to stay cool during one phase and maintain a high temperature in another. Losing track of that assay—or a batch of them—during the process can quickly nullify any processing work that’s already been completed.

Keeping track of biotech materials with only low-tech manual processes can require heavy management resources, including manual inventory checks and tedious or error-prone steps to account for each stage of production. Any of these problems can hurt quality, limit production output, and delay project completions.

THE SOLUTION: WISER’S AUTONOMOUS ASSET TRACKING AND PRECISION-LOCATION SYSTEM

WISER's asset tracking and precision-location system addresses the complex needs of time-sensitive assays production in biotech and pharmacological settings.

Operating in a clean-room environment with time-sensitive assays presents several unique challenges, encompassing aspects of both environmental control and procedural precision. Some of these challenges are stringent contamination control, air quality maintenance, strict adherence to Standard Operating Procedures (SPOs), and assay timing, which may require precise timing for various steps, such as incubation periods, reagent addition, and measurement. Delays, or derivations can affect the accuracy and reliability of results. These assays, housed in large barrels and subjected to various stages of refinement or production, require meticulous monitoring to prevent loss or compromise of their integrity.

By affixing WISER Locator asset tracking tags to each barrel, cart, or container, process managers gain real-time insights into the location, movement history, and environmental conditions of each assay. This data enables informed decision-making, allowing managers to assess progress, identify potential deviations from the production plan, and ensure compliance with specific time or temperature requirements.

To address these complexities, the company opted for WISER's robust tagging system. Designed to withstand rigorous conditions, our ruggedized tags and antennas proved ideal for this application. Whether enduring outdoor elements or harsh or demanding clean room environments, our antennas maintain optimal performance. The WISER tags, securely affixed to the carts, undergo daily washing with cleaning solutions without compromising their functionality or integrity. Laser-engraved identification numbers ensure durability and legibility, even under these demanding conditions.

THE RESULTS: ALWAYS-CURRENT ASSET LOCATION

The results were transformative for the biotech facility’s process managers. They can now instantly identify any delays, impending shelf-life concerns, incorrect placements, process deviations, or temperature violations. Automated alerts based on asset status provide timely notifications, and real-time data on process congestion enables adjustments to timelines, refinement of performance, and assurance of sample stability and quality.

WISER's asset tracking system ensures that the flow of data remains uninterrupted, even after a product reaches its designated storage location. Operating both indoors and outdoors with UWB technology, this system allows for seamless tracking of biotech products moving between facilities on a campus, or even cross docks and onto specific transports. With wireless timestamping, the system provides continuous updates as products progress towards their destination, eliminating the need for constant manual scanning paperwork, or additional manual efforts.