Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1112785
Tablets & Capsules May 2019 27 Getting everyone on the same page Techeuticals kicked-off its 2019 training year January 22-24 with its manufacturing process course. The two- and-a-half-day course is held at the company's non-GMP solid dose pilot facility and covers the essential unit oper- ations needed to make tablets and capsules, including for- This provides the manufacturer's entire team with a common language and knowledge base, allowing them to work together more effectively. This kind of team training is especially helpful when problems crop up during a production run. "In our industry, we don't have a standard methodol- o g y t o s o l v e p r o b l e m s , " s a i d M i c h a e l T o u s e y , Techceuticals' technical service director and chief exec- utive officer. "Sometimes, operators, formulators, and technicians can find ways to work around a problem to get production back on track, but they don't always have a set process or enough time to identify the root cause, let alone time to teach their teammates how to do the same. That's not performance, that's survival." Tousey has worked in solid dosage manufacturing for more than 44 years and has seen the need for com- prehensive training throughout his career. Today, his company provides online training courses, offers on-site client training, and hosts several training courses per year at the company's Cleveland site. These courses cover topics such as tableting, trouble- shooting and defects resolution, encapsulation, and tablet film coating. Techceuticals also offers more in-depth training certifications for qualifying a com- pany trainer as well as education modules made specif- ically with managers and executives in mind. Of all the company's offerings, its manufacturing process course remains the most popular and has been in the works since before the company started. In 1977, Tousey was leading a team of solid dosage operators for a manufacturer in San Francisco, CA, and observed that, because each operator had a different background in manufacturing, they each had a different approach to troubleshooting process issues or product defects. He needed a quick and straightforward approach to get all the operators on the same page. This mentality of finding an effective and shared troubleshooting process provided the framework for the training programs he would go on to design. Photos 1 a and b: The Techceuticals lab is filled with lab-scale manufacturing and analytical testing equipment provided by industry sponsors, including tablet presses, capsule fillers, roller compactors, mills, fluid-bed granulators, pan and Wurster coaters, and tablet hardness testers. Photo 2: Wilf Sanguesa of Quadro Engineering delivers a presentation on particle sizing processes, including milling and screening. Photo 3: Techceuticals' Michael Tousey uses his 45 years of solid dosage manufacturing experience to guide his class discussions.