Fully Automated Tablet Production The Shop Floor Is Getting Smart: Glatt and Bayer Are Digitizing Operator Intelligence

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Pushing heavy containers and manually supplying materials are things of the past at Bayer—at least in the new tablet production facility, Solida 1. Here, intralogistics work fully automatically. This is made possible by a unique software solution that orchestrates the robotic systems for material flow.

In tablet production facilities here in Germany and around the world, operators push heavy barrels and containers into cleanrooms and ensure that each production unit is supplied with the right materials at the right time. What sounds simple is, however, extremely demanding. Highly qualified staff members are in short supply and bear a great deal of responsibility. A wrong decision or a seemingly small oversight can render an entire batch of potentially very expensive medications and precursors unusable.

To minimize human errors on the shop floor, pharmaceutical companies and plant manufacturers are working on comprehensive automation concepts. The pharmaceutical manufacturer Bayer has achieved a significant milestone towards a “lights-out factory” with its new tablet production at Solida 1 in the Chempark Leverkusen. This was made possible by a newly developed system from Glatt, which takes over the orchestration of intralogistics. Anton Kopitzsch, Team Lead Automation Engineering at Glatt in Weimar, and his colleague Thomas Geier, Product and Business Development Manager Automation & Digital Solutions, from Binzen, were involved from the start.