Module Type Package: Turning Visionary Concepts Into Reality

Versatile, modular plants are the process industry’s response to constantly changing market requirements. The development of standards for integrating individual modules into the pharmaceutical production process is currently in full swing. The Module Type Package (MTP) approach designates each module with its digital description, enabling highly flexible module connection and orchestration. ZETA is currently involved in a joint modular automation initiative with Rockwell Automation.

Future production plants can be assembled quickly and easily from individual modules with different functions. Depending on requirements, autonomous plant modules can be connected easily, thereby enabling “Plug & Produce” for pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Currently, the most significant challenges are the connecting and automating production modules. The end-to-end modularization of plants, from engineering to automated operation, can only be achieved with uniform and binding standards. For that reason, NAMUR, the User Association of Automation Technology in Process Industries, and ZVEI, the Electro and Digital Industry Association in Germany, have published a set of requirements under the term “Module Type Package (MTP).”

ZETA’s FreezeController demonstrator for MTP
ZETA is involved in implementing the MTP standard with its pilot project. A live demonstrator with ZETA’s FreezeController is at the core of this initiative with Rockwell Automation. The proven automated system for controlled freezing, temperature maintenance, and thawing of valuable biopharmaceutical products is being developed into a fully MTP-capable module that will be flexibly integrated into modular systems.