Digital Infrastructure Optimization for Automated Biopharmaceutical Cold Chain Equipment

Single Use Support cooperated with Siemens to implement digital infrastructure and automation technologies across its fluid and cold chain management systems for the biopharmaceutical sector. The solution integrates design and product lifecycle management tools with PC-based control hardware to accelerate equipment development and improve system availability during liquid medicine processing.

Engineering Challenges in Biopharmaceutical Cold Chains
The production, filling, freezing, storage, and transport of sensitive liquid medicines such as vaccines require extreme process precision and temperature stability, often well below freezing points. As custom system designs and single-use fluid transfer assemblies scale, managing complex engineering data and controller programming becomes a core operational challenge.

Single Use Support required a unified engineering platform to manage complex assemblies, ensure design scalability, and shorten system delivery times while maintaining high automation reliability.

Software Integration and Lifecycle Management
Single Use Support adopted software solutions from the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio, including Designcenter and Teamcenter.

Designcenter enables precise 3D engineering of single-use assemblies, 2D bags, transfer manifolds, and complex filling and freezing machinery. Teamcenter functions as a central Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) platform, managing component design data, revision histories, and structural workflows. Implementation support for the PLM software was provided by Siemens partner ACAM.

Control System Architecture and Automation
For physical machine automation, Single Use Support integrated Siemens control hardware into its filling and freezing platforms. Central to this architecture is the SIMATIC ET 200SP Open Controller.

This hardware combines PC-based control, human-machine interface (HMI) visualization, and centralized I/O modules into a single unit. The system utilizes a software-based PLC that operates independently of the underlying host operating system. This independent execution prevents operating system crashes or background processes from interrupting controller execution, maintaining continuous system availability during critical freezing operations.

Operational Results and System Performance
The combination of unified lifecycle software and independent controller execution addresses the operational complexities of biopharmaceutical equipment manufacturing.

Centralized engineering data management via Teamcenter reduces design iteration lead times for custom single-use assemblies. On the hardware layer, the SIMATIC ET 200SP Open Controller maintains real-time control performance while simultaneously executing data visualization tasks, avoiding the need for separate control hardware and reducing spatial footprints within biopharmaceutical processing environments.

Edited by Evgeny Churilov, Induportals Media - Adapted by AI.

www.siemens.com