Automation Expo 2017: The Pharma Road Show
As the countdown begins for the grand opening of Automation Expo 2017 in early August, the organizers held a Road Show at Goa for the Pharma Industry.
The Pharma Industry is one of the success stories of India scaling achieving great numbers and global recognition. By 2020, India is likely to be among the top three pharmaceutical markets by incremental growth and sixth largest market globally in absolute size. Automation has played no small role in this development. In fact, Sameer Gandhi, Managing Director, Omron Automation India, has gone on record saying the pharma industry in India is ahead of many others on the automation front in India. This growth in the Pharma Industry and its increasing need for the latest technology in automation, engineering, artificial intelligence and robotics has motivated Automation Expo 2017 to provide an exclusive pavilion to the pharma machinery manufacturers and automation service providers from core automation and manufacturing IT sector for the Pharma Industry.
Automation Expo 2017 – the 12th edition of South East Asia’s largest event for the segment takes place from 9-12 August 2017 in Hall No. 1 at the Bombay Exhibition and Convention Centre – also has on the agenda a Pharma Automation Conference with Technical Sessions coupled with value added networking opportunities amongst like-minded professionals from Automation and Instrumentation, Process Engineering, Quality Assurance, Manufacturing IT, Quality Control, Tech Transfer, Operational Excellence and various projects disciplines along with the IT Solution Providers this year.
IED Communications, the host of Automation Expo 2017, organised a pre-launch show on the 16th of June at the Taj Vivanta, Panjim, Goa, aimed at the Pharma Industry. It was a gathering of Heads of Department of engineering and instrumentation from the Pharma Industry, and the road show was well attended with delegates from Cipla, Teva Pharma, Syngenta, Fertin, E Merck and also from the warehousing and packaging sector.
The show started with a welcome note, followed by a presentation on the Automation Expo. The Guest Speaker for the event was Mr Ramachandra Pandian – Head of Engineering Operations, Deccan Fine Chemicals (formerly Syngenta India Limited). Among his responsibilities are key functions like ensuring: reliability of plant and equipment; site related projects are justified, planned and executed on time; leadership capabilities are enhanced in the team and deliverable are met at highest standards; bad actors are identified and failures are eliminated; and nurturing a continuous improvement culture through RCA, FMEA and RCM. Mr Pandian has rich and varied experience in his long career before joining Deccan Fine Chemicals. This includes: Director and Head Engineering at Dr Reddys for 5 years; and Head of Manufacturing Engineering Excellence for 6 Formulation plants across India; he was the Chief Engineer at
Pfizer India Ltd for 13 years providing engineering and maintenance support for manufacturing, and has served as Project Engineer at Gharda Chemicals Ltd and also as Maintenance Engineer at Hoechst India Ltd. A Six Sigma Black Belt in the field, Pandian has an engineering degree from GCT, Coimbatore. He made a presentation on the problems faced by the Pharma Industry and need for automation and how it can help the industry.
After the session it was time networking with delegates who are very keen to visit the show and attend the conference.
Automation Expo 2017 has attracted a large number of companies with more than 540 stalls from 900+ exhibitors and co-exhibitors who will showcase their products, systems, services and solutions. The event also has a number of concurrent activities in the form of conferences and technical sessions.