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The change from conventional stainless steel pipework to PTFE hose is not in itself revolutionary. However, the new HydroGienic® design enables small bore PTFE hoses to be employed to considerable advantage. Instead of designing the piped distribution system around the user points in conventional series, with all of the associated hydraulic design problems, the use of small bore hoses allows cost effective installation of users in parallel. In other words, each individual offtake point has a flow and return hose connection back to the plant room vessel through which a minimum flow velocity is maintained.

The Client:

An innovative and rapidly expanding company, Dales Pharmaceuticals (the manufacturing division of Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC) provides a wide range of contract manufacturing and packaging services to the global pharmaceutical industry.

Producing a diverse range of dosage forms in a wide scale of volumes and batch sizes, Dales Pharmaceuticals are committed to an ongoing investment and development plan in order to continue to successfully meet the rapidly evolving needs and high degree of flexibility demanded by their clients and the industry. 

Location:

Skipton, North Yorkshire.

Scope:

The Honeyman Group undertook a turnkey project to design, install, validate and commission a HydroGienic® Purified Water generation, storage and distribution system.

Background:

Site expansion plans meant that Dales Pharmaceuticals required a new Purified Water system that would generate and supply water to two separate production buildings.  Having initially considered a conventional stainless steel loop system, Dales Pharmaceuticals soon recognised that in order to achieve adequate functionality, two separate loops would be required.  With concerns regarding space constraints, cost efficiency and the ability to easily modify the system in the future as and when client needs dictated, Dales Pharmaceuticals instead opted for a HydroGienic® system.

Vital Statistics:

• PW Generation: RO and CEDi

• PW Throughput: 3m³ per hour

• PW Vessel Capacity: 5m³

• Number of Offtakes: 10 in 2 Buildings

• Flowrates at Offtakes: Range From 10 to 50 lts/min

• Total Output Capability: 171 lts/min, at 100% diversity

• Sanitisation: Intermittent Ozonisation

• Cost Comparison: Approximately 15% cheaper than conventional system

3000 litres of Purified Water per hour are generated by a bespoke HydroGienic®  generation system which is then stored in a 5000 litre customised vessel before being distributed to 10 points of use around the facility via the unique HydroGienic® distribution system.

The neat and compact design of the HydroGienic® system meant that any concerns regarding the availability of space in the plant room and roof voids were overcome from the outset.  Employing small bore PTFE hoses rather than stainless steel pipes not only ensures a compact design but allows a quick and easy installation with a significantly reduced validation effort subsequently leading to reduced project timescales and cost.

Alleviating the problems encountered with the existing system and overcoming all the restrictions imposed by a conventional stainless steel loop system, the design of the HydroGienic® distribution system enables Dales Pharmaceuticals to:

• Use each user point simultaneously without any compromise to flow rates.

• Easily expand or modify the system in the future with minimal disruption to production and downtime.

• Isolate individual user points for sanitisation and maintenance quickly, effortlessly and without impact on any other user point.

• Eliminate ‘hot working’ in production areas during the installation and thus avoiding disruption to the facility.

Mike Annice, Managing Director of Dales Pharmaceuticals said: “The nature of our contract manufacturing business is such that we need to be able to alter production schedules quickly and efficiently in order to meet changing client requirements, fundamental to this are facilities that can be easily adapted, with its ease of modification and flexibility in expansion with minimal compromise to production a HydroGienic® Purified Water system allows us to do exactly that”