Ensure the maintenance of a site under construction, a real challenge
US biotechnology giant Biogen has invested over one billion Swiss francs in a new drug production center in Luterbach, Switzerland. Christophe, accompanied by a team of three agap2 consultants, has set up preventive maintenance for this site ... still in the construction phase! A real peculiarity that makes all the singularity of this project.
A factory still in the project phase
Setting up the basics of preventive maintenance in a plant in the project phase is a real challenge that we have agreed to meet for Biogen. The technical drawings are not validated, the components are not yet installed … all the peculiarity of this project is that we must prepare preventive maintenance plans for equipment still under construction! The major challenge of our work is to not postpone the start of the site for problems related to maintenance. For this, all equipment must undergo their first preventive maintenance (including the change of elastomers in product contact) before starting validation batches.
Four agap2 consultants mobilized
Up to four agap2 consultants specialized in maintenance and documentation have been deployed to the maintenance team of the site. Our role has been to study the Turn Over Packages of dozens of equipments in order to find the components and to anticipate their maintenance, to prepare plans, to modify them and to validate them once the equipments installed. I defined the coding of the spare parts of the site starting from scratch. The consultant in charge of the documentation has for his part structured the aspects of procedure, training, on boarding.
A unique opportunity in a career
Despite my experience in the pharmaceutical industry, I had not yet been confronted with Biotechnology equipment. Similarly, I was always involved in a factory already in operation, everything was established (on the procedure part, maintenance plan and structure) and where my expertise was mainly focused on solving problems related to the technical maintenance, the human management, the continuous improvement of maintenance techniques and the support, in particular to quality, on the regulatory documentary aspect. The encounter of a factory in the project phase, which does not happen to everyone in a career, and in Biotech moreover, was both a challenge and a huge motivation in one aspect of maintenance that I had not touched yet. I get more knowledge and experience without equal.
