Line 3 Mock-up

Last month was a turning point for oncomed – not only in terms of the implementation of new operating systems and ERP. It’s been a month since, after many years of planning and designing, we have successfully completed a mock-up of Line 3.

What is a mock-up and why is it so important?

For an aseptic production line in an isolator, it is necessary to take into account a lot of things that many of us face daily on Line 2. A mock-up is thus a perfect tool for solving some things in the design phase, before starting the production of the line itself. Imagine building a model made of wood, plastic, paper, glass and use it to test how all the materials are handled inside, how the line is controlled through gloves, where to put hooks, storage baskets, how the materials will be transported in and out. It also helps to define how much space we need around the production line, where a vessel with the product will be located, how will we connect it to the line, where we can walk and where we cannot, how high we need to place the gloves, the ports, whether we will need steps, whether it will be accessible to operators of different height, how we will control the line, where we will place the control panels, where the buttons, where the sensors and last but not least where monitoring will be located. To place the monitoring points (active, passive, particle counting) in the best positions took us a lot of discussion and thinking, I personally did not expect it to be so complex.

We had test forms ready for testing, we created them over several weeks, people from Oncotec also helped us set up the procedures correctly. A line for syringes is new to all of us, some steps are the same as for Line 2, some are completely different. Therefore, the cooperation with Oncotec was both beneficial and necessary. In essence, we had to intersect the manufacturing operations of oncomed with Oncotec operations and operations designed by Syntegon. We had to repeat the tests several times, because each time the configuration changed, the conditions changed as well – e.g. when we moved the gloves or a port, we had to repeat some tests and re-test whether we could reach everywhere we need.

Sometimes, it looked like the construction of the Tower of Babel – Slovak, Czech, German and English mixed, and sometimes it was a cacophony of sounds. Once, it also seemed that we would not be successful in building our “tower”, because we came across a big problem at the very beginning (time pressure system product path) and it took us about 2 days to solve them together with Syntegon.

The four days we spent there were very demanding, nevertheless, they were very creative and I really enjoyed the process a lot. We learned a lot new not only from Syntegon, Oncotec but also from each other, because it was mainly about cooperation and listening to other opinions, for which I would like to thank everyone involved. And I really wish it will stay like this for the years to come.

We are currently negotiating with Syntegon to transport the entire model to Brno. So in a few weeks we will probably meet on the premises of Line 3 and everyone will be able to see the mock-up in real life.The mock-up is a turning point for the whole project, as it switches from the design phase to the implementation phase and we can see the production line in a real size and shape.