On the complexity of production planning and scheduling in the pharmaceutical industry: the Delivery Trade-offs Matrix

Abstract

The manufacturing of pharmaceutical products is preceded by complex development phases where process design, planning, and scheduling problems must be considered as deeply linked, fact that has not yet been adequately handled by the existing literature. In this perspective, this work discusses the role of the production planning and scheduling decisions in the pharmaceutical industry. It starts by analysing the main aspects that influence planning and scheduling, and defines an extended scope of the related problems, as a way to account for higher levels of integration between process design and operational decisions. We propose a novel conceptual representation, the Delivery Trade-offs Matrix (DTM) to help managing the trade-offs occurring in the drug development process and to expose the factors that affect the performance of these manufacturing systems.

Recent Trends and Challenges in Planning and Scheduling of Chemical-Pharmaceutical Plants

“…In practice both problems may present several conflicting objectives such as, for example, minimizing costs and minimizing delivery times. Moreover the characteristics of the market, of production processes, and of chemical plants make planning and scheduling tasks particularly difficult to perform [5].…”

“…To address this issue, we have proposed in a previous work, a representation of R&D and manufacturing tradeoffs, called Delivery Trade-offs Matrix (DTM) (Fig. 2 a) [5]. The DTM shows the three phases of the drug development cycle (R&D, trials I-III, and commercialization) against some relevant issues this industry needs to continuously manage, such as cost, uncertainty, time-to-market, amount delivered, campaign and shortterm planning.…”

The Spatial Dimension of Drug Production in Romania

“…The manufacturing process of pharmaceutical products consists of designing, planning and scheduling every process phase. The aim is to reduce the costs and improve the good working of the manufacturing systems [6]. And the reason of it is to improve permanently the quality and the patients' satisfaction [7].…”