The world leading Diamond Pilot Plant (DiPP) Industry 4.0 Demonstrator (DiPP) puts Sheffield and the UK at the centre stage of global research-led teaching facilities in process engineering and education.
DiPP Digital Twin will leverage and enhance the DiPP facilities to enable the pharmaceutical industry to explore the benefits which IoT, simulation and other digitalisation technology can bring to their existing plants, by offering:
- Demonstration facilities to test and validate potential IoT applications in the real world.
- Cost-effective experimentation with production-class operational equipment, without the costly downtime and reduced output if that were to be done on actual production machines.
- An opportunity to access and optimise low-level control systems in a pre-competitive environment.
"The pharma industry is undergoing more change now than ever. And while the pharma industry is sitting on mountains of data, they have been slower than other industries to adopt digital technologies due to the nature of the business. DiPP Digital Twin project will unlock the potential to provide actionable insights to drive productivity forward."
Professor Mo Zandi
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
As part of a wider project, Siemens, Perceptive Engineering and GEA are collaborating with the University of Sheffield to supply the software, services, engineering and training to provide three PharmaMV Advanced Process Control platforms. The platforms will support the ongoing training, research and development activities on the GEA ConsiGma Tableting line (Diamond Pilot Plant - DiPP), Nitech Continuous Crystalliser and AWL filter dryer. The platforms will also support the centre’s industry 4.0 initiatives including linking with PSE’s gFormulated Products models and Siemens MindSphere leading ultimately to building a digital twin of the DiPP.
The project will explore the potential commercialisation opportunities of the solutions developed during the development of DiPP Digital Twin and will be used to train the next generation scientists and engineers on the latest continuous manufacturing technology.
For more information contact:
Professor Mo Zandi