Since the Digital Extraction and Refinement Factory for Modern Traditional Chinese Medicine has been listed in the first batch of intelligent manufacturing pilot demonstration projects by the Ministry of Industry and Information as a Pilot Demonstration of Intelligent Factory for TCM, Jiangsu Kanion Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd continued to increase the investment in transformation and upgrading of manufacturing.It has completed the upgrading and construction of an intelligent factory and workshop, with a cumulative investment of more than 1 billion Yuan, making outstanding contributions to the local economy and high-quality development of the TCM industry.
Safety, efficacy, and uniform quality are essential attributes of medicines.Chinese medicine product is a multi-component complex system, and its production and manufacturing process is a complex dynamic system engineering.How to produce Chinese medicine preparations of uniform quality from herbs of uneven quality has become one of the bottlenecks limiting the safety and efficacy of Chinese medicine products.Kanion Pharmaceutical was the first in China to put forward the concept of efficacy substance, which is the constituent group of TCM that exerts clinical therapeutic effect, and took it as the cornerstone of the research on intelligent manufacturing, and systematically constructed a whole-process quality control system with the efficacy substance as the core and an intelligent manufacturing technology system.It realises the point-to-point consistency, segment consistency, and batch consistency of the efficacy substances in the whole production process, which significantly improves the uniformity of product quality and ensures clinical effectiveness and safety. With the help of the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the state vigorously promotes the intelligent transformation of enterprises, Kanion Pharmaceutical has carried out the intelligent construction and transformation, and gradually built and improved six intelligent workshops or warehouses, such as intelligent extraction and refining workshop, intelligent manufacturing workshop for injections, intelligent solid dosage plant, intelligent oral liquid workshop, pre-treatment and extraction workshop, and intelligent warehouse.The total investment in construction exceeds 1 billion yuan, covering an area of nearly 40,000 square metres and a building area of over 100,000 square metres.All the factories adopt intelligent management systems such as online quality control, automation control, intelligent logistics, etc. The expected manufacturing capacity reaches 5 billion hard capsules, 500 million soft capsules, 2.8 billion tablets of traditional Chinese medicine, 700 tonnes of granules, 380 million oral liquids, 76 million injections, etc., and the expected annual output value reaches 10.3 billion RMB.
Kanion has set up a special intelligent research institute with multi-disciplinary technical experts in TCM, traditional Chinese medicine pharmacy, automation control, quality control of traditional Chinese medicine, information and computation, big data analysis, and artificial intelligence.
They have extensive experience and knowledge in quality analysis technology of traditional Chinese medicine production processes, machine vision technology, automation, and edge computing technology, information system and database technology, data analysis and modeling technology, and industrial application of artificial intelligence.
The team mainly solves the problems encountered in intelligent transformation and digital transformation such as the establishment of advanced testing methods, production line automation upgrading, production information technology platform construction, industrial big data analysis, etc. At the same time, it promotes the digital and intelligent transformation and upgrading of the entire traditional Chinese medicine industry through the compilation of relevant standards, to achieve the improvement of quality, reduction of costs and increase of efficiency.
Kanion Pharmaceutical continues to improve the intelligent manufacturing system, adding 1,599 sets of intelligent equipment and systems, and realising the intelligent production of multi-dosage products such as traditional Chinese medicine injections, oral liquids, and solid preparations, from extraction and refining to preparation and warehousing.Compared with the traditional workshop, the efficiency of the production line is increased by 23.47%,energy consumption is reduced by 21.77%, and quality uniformity is increased by 22.46%.During the construction, we have been supported by relevant national and Jiangsu Province projects many times.
●In 2015,Pilot demonstration of smart factories for the production of traditional Chinese medicine
●In 2017, a special provincial project for the transformation and upgrading of the industrial and information industry and a project for the comprehensive standardisation of intelligent manufacturing and the application of new models by the State Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT)
●In 2018, the 1st batch of provincial transformation and upgrading of the industry and information (comprehensive award and subsidy for technological transformation), the 2nd batch of provincial transformation and upgrading projects of the industry and information industry (award and subsidy for demonstration of the intelligent workshop, and award and subsidy for the fusion of two-chemistry and coherent standard), and the national scientific and technological major project (demonstration study on the integration of advanced pharmaceuticals in traditional Chinese medicines and informatisation technology)
●In 2019, Intelligent Manufacturing Demonstration Factory in Jiangsu Province
●In 2020, participate in the editing of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's White Paper on Intelligent Manufacturing in China's Pharmaceutical Industry, 2020 Edition.
●In 2021, it released the group standard of China Association for Pharmaceutical Quality Management - Technical Requirements for Intelligent Production of Chinese Medicine Extraction, won the Pilot Demonstration for Development of Big Data Industry of MIIT, won the Model Enterprise for Development of Industrial Internet in Jiangsu Province (Benchmark Factory Category), Key Industrial Internet Platform in Jiangsu Province, won the Excellent Case of Digital Transformation in Lianyungang.
●In 2022,won the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Intelligent Manufacturing Excellent Scene and award of Digital Transformation for Lianyungang Manufacturing Industry.
●In 2023, released China Instrument Society group standard - Chinese medicine production process column chromatography elution starting point and end point of real-time judgment near-infrared spectrometry and Jiangsu Provincial Market Supervision Bureau Local standard - On-line near-infrared detection system for the production process of extraction, concentration, and extraction of traditional Chinese medicine extracts, which won the first prize of Lianyungang Data Development and Application Innovation Competition.
Kanion Pharmaceutical has collaborated with Zhejiang University, Beijing Chinese Medicine University, Jiangnan University, and other famous colleges universities, and research institutes to carry out the research, exploration, and application of TCM of informatization and intelligence. What’s more, Kanion has established relevant standards and specifications for intelligent production, making breakthroughs in the collection and application of TCM and gradually forming a digital twin methodology of the medicine production process.
In terms of information system construction and equipment intelligence, Kanion jointly developed or transformed MES, APS, ERP, DCS, SCADA, WMS and other information systems applied to the TCM united with domestic outstanding technology and equipment suppliers. Such rich experience in the construction of intelligent factories formed a series of patent technologies and developed a professional talent team. In terms of network construction, Kanion has set up a 5G network,5G+ MEC computing network and AGV, intelligent attendance, outdoor video monitoring, and other common scenes that are in accordance with actual business needs and demands through deep cooperation with China Telecom and China Mobile.
Through the above research and construction co-operation, Kanion Pharmaceutical has made a series of technological breakthroughs in the intelligent manufacturer of traditional Chinese medicine:
