PIYUSH BHANDARI, Area Sales Head – Clearpack speaks to Pharma Machines & Technology on the challenges in building automation solutions for pharma industry, how Clearpack keeps a close watch on the market and consumer behaviour and prepare itself for the new challenges, and on the newest solutions Clearpack offers to pharma industry.
Q. What are the challenges in building automation solutions for pharma industry, compared to CPG?
A. For pharma, a great level of attention and detail must be on hygienic design, material selection, validation, documentation, and control as compared to CPG. I must add that many CPG products also demand high hygienic design, so we are quite familiar with these requirements.
Q. The fast-changing pharmaceutical industry calls for newest packaging solutions. Is the packaging industry equipped? What are your comments?
A. At Clearpack, we keep a close watch on the market and consumer behaviour and prepare ourselves for the new challenges. Pharmaceutical industry demands innovative automation solution given the nature of the product and added by tough regulatory requirements. These requirements keep changing based on the country where these products are exported and hence the solutions that we provide should be extremely øexible and easy to adapt to change with minimum cost implication. Clearpack is always prepared for tomorrow’s challenge, and we believe this is the only way to grow with the time.
Q. Investing in the right technologies has become an integral part of pharma industry's efforts to prepare for the future. How do you help the industry out?
A. Innovation is the key here. They can be either driven by our customer or by the technology provider like us. We closely workwith our customer in developing a solution from concept. In many cases these investments may not lead to an immediate business, but Clearpack consciously spends time and resource in these developmental works as we believe this is the road map for innovations and thereby, we can prepare the industry for future
Pharmaceutical industry demands innovative automation solution given the nature of the product and added by tough regulatory requirements. These requirements keep changing based on the country where these products are exported and hence the solutions that we provide should be extremely flexible and easy to adapt to change with minimum cost implication. Clearpack is always prepared for tomorrow’s challenge, and we believe this is the only way to grow with the time.”
Q. It is said that the growth rate of technology has been much faster than the overall growth of pharma industry. What are your comments?
A. The trends in technology development have indeed taken enviable strides over the overall growth. But this has been fast tracked by the pandemic and the technology has been close behind to address the requirement of providing the vaccine in a record time of 15 months bringing it down from 5 to 8 years or more.
Q. Brief about your offices, factories and people strength globally?
A. Clearpack was setup in 1994 in India with a dream to build a great packaging automation company. We are currently a 500+ people strong, stable, and well-organized group with network of offices, R&D and production facilities and a dedicated team of packaging professionals across Southeast Asia, India, China, Middle East, Americas, and Europe.
In recent years, we have seen exponential growth in automation adoption and expanded our factory in 2016 in India. Last year, amidst COVID lockdown, the company saw further growth potential in India and accelerated its expansion plans to support the increasing production demand. We also established our sister concern Smart Factory Solutions Pvt Ltd to offer Efficiency Improvement Solutions – a must have tool to monitor and improve overall productivity of production lines.
In recent years, we have seen exponential growth in automation adoption and expanded our factory in 2016 in India. Last year, amidst COVID lockdown, the company saw further growth potential in India and accelerated its expansion plans to support the increasing production demand. We also established our sister concern Smart Factory Solutions Pvt Ltd to offer Efficiency Improvement Solutions – a must have tool to monitor and improve overall productivity of production lines.”
Q. What are the newest solutions you offer to pharma industry?
A. We have developed new solutions and models in both Primary Packaging and End-of-Line space.
In Primary Packaging, from pharma standpoint, our new solutions are Linear Filling technology using Flow meters with full CIP capability, Hygienic nozzle, and high ölling accuracy (0.3%), Net weight Rotary Filling machines and Servo cappers with full Torque control.
In End-of-Line space for bundling and case packing, we have developed several new and compact solutions around Vision and Robotics integrated with Track and Trace. These solutions have high degree of fexibility with quick changeover for formats. These could be particularly interesting for pharma sector.
