Weighing and dispensing booths are good manufacturing practices (GMP) critical environments as the ingredients used to produce pharmaceutical products are picked up from the containers and poured onto a scale, meaning they are directly exposed to the environment. It is essential to maintain the proper environmental conditions to preserve the quality of ingredients and the safety of the weighing operation in terms of temperature, humidity, and cleaning.
Cleaning after every use is necessary to minimize the risk of cross-contamination since the same dispensing workstation may be used for multiple batches or different products. It cannot be stressed enough that cleaning is an essential part of quality procedures adopted in the pharmaceutical industry.
A company must strive to optimize and make the cleaning operation for their dispensing booth as efficient as possible through understandable and straightforward procedures so that weighing and dispensing operators aren’t overwhelmed. The cleaning must be performed smartly; there isn’t a need to invest in overbearing or cumbersome cleaning operations. What is most important for balancing expenses with requirements is to customize the workstation’s cleaning operation based on date, time, and material.
The benefits of a dispensing workstation cleaning plan include the:
Reduced number of non-conformities due to the mandatory and straightforward cleaning operations conforming to the current GMP rules
Reduced risk of cross-contamination due to the minimized quantity of residual material
Reduced risk of faulty or inaccurate measures caused by residual material in the dispensing booth
Accurately maintained and cleaned workstations can help prevent unexpected consequences such as weighing operation rejection, waste of material, or even measurement variations.
STAEDEAN Life Sciences Weighing and Dispensing solution provides a built-in Cleaning Management System that prompts the operator with the proper cleaning procedure to follow based on the weighed material type. Operators are unable to proceed until the cleaning has been performed. The relations between material types and cleaning operations are fully configurable to guarantee compliance with safety and regulatory guidelines.
The STAEDEAN Life Sciences Weighing & Dispensing software also enables clients to:
Schedule recurrent cleaning operations: Daily cleaning may be necessary to preserve the environmental condition of the dispensing booth after a night of inactivity, or a deep cleaning may be required every month to comply with quality standards.
Register a cleaning operation log: The supervisor needs to keep track of and demonstrate the successful execution of a cleaning operation. The supervisor could also track when and who cleaned the dispensing booth, allowing him/her to pinpoint possible problems.
In short, attention to cleanliness is a must in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. Cleaning should always be guided by quality practices and performed on schedule so that it can be appropriately monitored and STAEDEAN can help.