VIP3000 Award 2019 awarded at the Hochschule Albstadt-Sigmaringen

On January 14th, students of the Master's program in Facility and Process Design presented their project work created as part of the course Factory Planning 2. The task for each of the four teams was: Planning a production facility / factory for the Life Science industry.

The project work had to include the entire planning process: the site characteristics, the storage and material flow system, the production facilities, the technical building equipment, social facilities, and an cost estimate.

Using the simulation software WITNESS, the student factories were also visualized with a 3D animation.

The goal of the presentation was not only to fulfill the exam requirement. For the fifth time, the best project work was awarded the VIP3000 - Award, sponsored by the Association of Pharmaceutical Construction.

Prof. Dr. Enrico Grothe and Ralf Stahl, Senior Key Account Manager at Kemmlit and board member of VIP3000, evaluated the presented project works:

- Planning a factory for the production of tablets
- Factory for the production of ready-mix baking ingredients
- Simulation study of a toothpaste factory
- "Firmitas Healthcare GmbH" – Production of Tonic

On January 21st, the award ceremony took place at the university. Ralf Stahl, board member of VIP3000, presented the €400 prize to the team around Anna Bischof, Lukas Hönes, Isabell Ritter, and Jakob Zeghiorgis. Prof. Dr. Enrico Grothe praised the very well-rounded, detailed, and highly committed project work. The group complemented the planning process with flexible expansion through increasing shift operations, the production line, and the production volume. They also used the WITNESS simulation tool to simulate a potential production outage in their factory.

For the first time, a Master's thesis was awarded the VIP3000 Award. Ralf Stahl presented a certificate and €100.00 to Nadine Hübner for her thesis titled "Planning of the Weighing and Filling Area as well as Dry Mixing of a Solida Production in South America under Containment Conditions." The Master's thesis involves planning the weighing and filling area of a Solida3 production of a pharmaceutical company on an existing plant site in South America, where Solida products of categories OEB4 one to five are to be manufactured in the future. This presents a particular challenge in the area of containment.

"This work clearly reflects the goal of the course Factory Planning: planning from coarse to fine," said Prof. Dr. Enrico Grothe.