Attendees packed the room for this year’s Facility of the Year Education (FOYA) Session, moderated by Dave DiProspero, Chair of the Foya Committee (below on left). The interactive Foya Education Session gave attendees rare insight into the FOYA Category winners as they discussed their winning projects. Dr. Takeshi Furukawa, Director Engineering Technology, Astellas Pharma Inc. (below), presented Astellas’ Tube Labeling Project in Killorglin Co. Kerry, Ireland, which won in the Equipment Innovation category.  Astellas delivered a technology innovation allowing it to fill product into common tubes which are printed with only common information for various markets.  Then they took their process a step further by adding country specific label information on common tubes. During Furukawa’s presentation, he touched on the major benefits to the industry from their project.  These benefits included: Supply chain issues can be dramatically improved through equipment innovation For stable production, set design concepts and a quality standard at the early stages and apply throughout the equipment development phase Bulk product specs, both known and unknown, should be observed carefully and considered for new equipment design New packaging products should be designed and tested with the consideration of how patients will use them Flexible communication is vital for a global complex project Martin Teo, Project Director at AstraZeneca Global Engineering (below), winner of the Project Execution category for their market supply solid dose facility located in Taizhou, China, offered an in-depth look at how AstraZeneca met their ambitious goals.  Phase one, of a planned three phase project, consisted of over 533,000 sq. […]