Welcoming Remarks

This project has focused on the concept of modular process development. This concept involves prefabrication of pilot scale skids with different unit operations that can be quickly deployed and rearranged as necessary for accelerated process development at the intermediate scale. This concept arose out of the COVID-19 epidemic as a means of decreasing the time required for scale-up and small scale production of pharmaceutical intermediates. However, the model can be applied to any chemical development effort, particularly when time is of the essence, such as another national crisis or supply chain failures.

The RAPID AMPD project has been undertaken through a grant from NIST to develop methods for accelerated process development, demonstration of the modular process development and deployment concept, to create a national center of excellence for scaling up technologies, and for developing the work processes and concepts for quickly numbering-up or scaling-up the chemical process based on the demonstration work.

As this initial demonstration project comes to a close, there are a number of lessons learned which can be shared associated with the team's experiences. Key topics will include the challenges of designing skids prior to collecting process data, recommendations for accelerated process development, and lessons from startup.

This work has been completed through cooperation between AICHE's RAPID manufacturing institute, AVN Corporation, Teich Process Development, and Procegence.