GE Considers Broadening ‘Brilliant’ Approach to Media Manufacturing

GE Healthcare has implemented its Brilliant Manufacturing software at a plant in Utah, and says it is looking to broaden the analytics platform across its cell culture media network.

In 2015, bioprocessing tools and equipment firm GE Healthcare launched its Brilliant Manufacturing Suite aimed at increasing production efficiency and optimization through analytical software.

While offered as a service to its customers, the firm has also implemented the technology at its own facilities, including as part of a manufacturing transformation project at a cell culture media plant in Logan, Utah.

The platform includes an electronic batch record system intended to remove over seven million manual entries and reduce time required to conduct 100,000 internal batch record quality reviews annually at the site. It will also give biomanufacturing customers greater transparency through the analysis of real-time data on the production of their cell culture media.

“The Logan digital transformation is not only about improving manufacturing efficiency,” Olivier Loeillot, general manager of BioProcess at GE Healthcare Life Sciences told BioProcess Insider. “We will be, for example, connecting digitally with our customers, offering them real-time data on their cell culture media.”

“The way we are running the facility will be changed and this will also bring new opportunities.”

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And now the firm is considering implementing the digital tech across its global media manufacturing network, Loeillot said

“We are running the manufacturing transformation project using GE’s Brilliant Manufacturing software suite first in Logan, but this is a concept that we are considering even broader within GE Healthcare Life Sciences.”

As well as the Utah site, the firm has cell culture production plants in Tuas, Singapore and Pasching (Austria). In May, GE announced it was planning to increase capacity at Pasching tenfold due to strong demand for cell culture media.

“The demand for cell culture media is growing and we will continue investing in this business, our capabilities and in our people.”