Increasingly, modular construction is being hailed by industry as a more efficient and cost-effective way to assemble flexible production facilities. Traditionally the benefits of modular construction have been primarily focused on the facility construction savings. While process skids such as bioreactors, centrifuges, CIP/SIP units and freeze dryers were included in the building modules, little thought went into the on-site integration of these process units.

Forward thinking end-user clients are rethinking their automation strategies and defining their “Plant of the Future”, combining modular construction with Modular Automation strategies in order to take advantage of the FDA’s Framework for Innovation initiative. By carefully planning how process units will be instrumented, automated and integrated at site, end-users are poised to take advantage of the new flexibility of the FDA with the goal of developing production facilities that more easily accommodate product changes, are easier to validate, and provide operators with real-time production and product quality information.