Process Modeling and Debottlenecking Study of a Vaccine Production

  • Dr Maizirwan Mel, Faculty of Engineering, IIUM, Malaysia
  • Nurul Sapri, Faculty of Engineering, IIUM, Malaysia
  • Dr Dominic Foo, School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Nottingham, Malaysia
  • Denny Ng, School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Nottingham, Malaysia
  • Irene Chew, School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Nottingham, Malaysia
  • The main objective of this work is to model and optimize a locally-developed Infectious Coryza (IC) vaccine production through a series of debottlenecking alternatives. The simulation work was performed using a commercial batch process simulator SuperPro Designer v5.5. From the base case simulation model, the process batch time was determined as 31.4 hours. This leads to an annual production of 765 batches, or an equivalent of 1,074,395 vials of IC vaccine. Throughput analysis was then carried out to identify the process bottleneck that limits the annual production rate. In order to increase the annual production to 100%, six debottlenecking schemes were developed. Comparison was made based on uniform economic criteria apart from satisfying the debottlenecking objective. The scheme with the highest cost benefit ratio (CBR) to fulfill the debottlenecking objective was selected as the best scheme. The annual production is increased tremendously to 1492 batches, which is equivalent to 2,095,422 vials of IC vaccine. Economic analysis determined that the proposed alternative production scheme has annual revenue of US $ 240,973,536, with a gross margin of 9.13% and a return on investment (ROI) of 46.12%. The payback period of this scheme was estimated to be less than three years.