Embedding Manufacturing Development into Formulation Research (EMFormR)

约翰逊万丰（JM）、联合利华（UL）和ITS有限公司已经建立了一个项目，开发方法和技术，以便在新配方的开发过程中收集制造相关信息。一般来说，特别是对于含有多种成分的产品，其中一些成分不能混合（例如乳剂、乳膏、浆状物、悬浮液），配方设计师不会显著考虑新产品从实验室转入中试规模试验并最终进入全规模生产时会出现的问题。因此，传统的配方方法在实验室规模上开发产品，很少或根本不注意其“可制造性”，这不仅在研究和开发方面效率低下，而且还导致次优制造;更高的成本和更大的环境影响。可能需要在产品性能上做出妥协，以满足市场推出时间表，这可能最终影响竞争力和市场份额。与伯明翰大学（UoB）和曼彻斯特大学（UoM）合作，该项目将解决在很大程度上阻碍在实验室规模获得有意义的过程信息的关键问题。该项目将通过减少可以获得可靠过程信息的规模来证明将制造过程变量研究嵌入产品研发的早期阶段的原则。这种并行的产品工艺设计将导致更大的创新能力，从而更快地推出更好的产品，改善成本结构，并增强持续创新的能力。因此，该项目将为产品和工艺特性介绍新技术，包括流体流动，混合特性，建模和优化技术以及工程设计。这将提供一个框架来定义一个过程工具箱，该工具箱具有创建优质产品和生产过程的能力。这不仅涉及到规模扩大的长期问题，还涉及到在所有规模上真实的时间内测量关键产品特性的具体困难。约翰逊万丰和联合利华将分别将结果应用于车辆排放控制催化剂和护发产品。

Johnson Matthey (JM), Unilever (UL) and ITS Ltd have established a project to develop approaches and techniques toallow manufacturing related information to be gleaned during the development of new formulations. Generally, andespecially for products which contain multiple components, some of which do not mix (e.g. emulsions, creams, slurries,suspensions), the formulator does not significantly consider the issues that will arise when the new product transfers fromthe laboratory into pilot scale trials and finally into full scale manufacturing. Thus the traditional approaches to formulationdevelop products at laboratory scale with little or no attention to their "manufacturability".Not only is this inefficient in terms of research and development, it also leads to sub-optimal manufacturing; higher costsand higher environmental impact. Compromises on product performance may need to be made to meet market launchschedules, which may ultimately affect competitiveness and market share. Working with the Universities of Birmingham(UoB) and Manchester (UoM), the project will address the key issues that have largely precluded gaining meaningfulprocess information at the laboratory scale.This project will demonstrate the principles of embedding manufacturing process variable studies into the earliest stages ofproduct R&D by reducing the scale at which reliable process information can be obtained. Such concurrent productprocessdesign will result in a greater innovation capability leading to faster launch of better products with an improved coststructure and an enhanced capability for continued innovation. The project will thus introduce new techniques for productand process characterisation, encompassing fluid flow, mixing characterisation, modelling and optimisation techniques andengineering design. This will provide a framework for defining a process toolbox with the capability to create superiorproducts and production processes. This involves not only the time honoured issues of scale up but also specificdifficulties of measuring in real time the critical product properties across all scales.Johnson Matthey and Unilever will apply the outcomes to vehicle emission control catalysts and hair care products respectively.