Exploring Pharmaceutical Mass Customization

The core purpose of therapeutic pharmaceutical products is to induce responses to various diseases in patients and thereby bring societal value; however, unmet medical needs currently prevail. Conventional treatment of these products predominantly embraces a one-size-fits-all design and is manufactured in a mass-production context. A mass-production context is driven by economies of scale, however, a one-size-fits-all product design challenges the satisfaction of individual patient needs. Pharmaceutical product customization thus aims to satisfy individuals’ treatment needs and thereby improve their therapeutic outcome; however, this implies a high product variety and low-volume production environment which challenges the cost-effective production with current mass-production platforms.To address this challenge of achieving the cost-effective production of customized pharmaceutical products, this thesis explores a unified approach to cost-effective design, manufacturing and supply of customized pharmaceutical products. For this purpose, the mass customization principles of product modularization, process flexibility and postponement are adopted and adapted in a pharmaceutical production context.This thesis proposes methodologies to design and model customized pharmaceutical products and production systems in a unified manner. Furthermore, customized product designs are proposed using product modularization as a design strategy and reconfigured pharmaceutical supply chain (SC) archetypes using postponement as a strategy for the cost-effective design, manufacturing and supply. The findings suggest that an increased degree of modularization in the pharmaceutical product increases the patient benefit and thus improves therapeutic patient outcomes. In addition, current mass production platforms do not display the process flexibility required for the cost-effective production of customized pharmaceutical products. Moreover, with an increased degree of postponement, opportunities for reduced production costs in the SC emerge. Finally, the cost-effective customization of pharmaceutical products requires an integrated approach of product modularization and postponement. While modeling the production system, this thesis, however, considers an SC from the manufacturer to the pharmacy and patient assessing contemporary cost-effectiveness. Future research directions should investigate societal consequences from a wider, spatial and temporal, health care system perspective

Managing the Potential of Modularization and Standardization of MEP Systems in Industrial Buildings - Guidelines for improvement based on lean principles

Modularization and standardization (M&S) of MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) systems improve end customer value according to lean concepts and principles. However, the imple-mentation of M&S is challenged. This research includes three main parts

Prioritizing BIM Capabilities of an Organization: An Interpretive Structural Modeling Analysis

The Indian Architectural Engineering and Construction sector is grappling with the adoption of BIM as is evident from a relatively low level of adoption. While there have been sufficient number of successful (and unsuccessful) project level implementations of BIM in India, the maturity level of the overall industry and its constituents remains relatively low. One of the challenges faced, especially at the organizational level, is an understanding and development of the organization's BIM capabilities. These capabilities need attention in terms of their effectiveness and hierarchy of implementation in order to overcome the challenges of adoption and increasing maturity levels in BIM usage. The inability to identify crucial BIM capabilities is one of the primary barriers to ineffective BIM implementation and slow adoption in India. The aim of this study is to investigate the dynamics of different BIM capabilities and to understand how these capabilities can be represented as a set of interrelated elements by adopting Interpretive Structure Modeling (ISM) technique Accordingly, a clear understanding regarding the nature of each BIM capability is developed that will help the organizations to plan the strategic implementation of BIM on any project and gain systematic, logical and productive results. Through the three-phased study, it was concluded that BIM capabilities namely visualization, energy and environment analysis, structural analysis, MEP system modelling, constructability analysis, and BIM for as-built were found to be the independent BIM capabilities having strong driving power but weak dependence power. Facilities management is a dependent BIM capability with weak driving power but strong dependence power. This study provides a roadmap to BIM implementers by highlighting the driving and dependence power of each BIM capability which is deemed useful for enhanced delivery of construction projects. Significant theoretical and practical implications are envisioned for both researchers and project managers through the findings of this study

Integrated Product and Process Design for Mass Customization: A Road Towards Patient Access to Individualized Pharmaceutical Therapy

Individualized pharmaceutical therapy strives to attain optimal health outcomes a priori in all patients treated with pharmaceutical products by tailoring these products to each patient’s holistic needs. However, existing mass-produced pharmaceutical products are not available in sufficient variety to enable adequate tailoring to the diverse needs of individuals. Consequently, this thesis has, firstly, recognized a potential alternative production approach designed for the provision of affordable variety, namely, mass customization. Thereafter, key product and process design requirements for establishing mass customization opportunities in the pharmaceutical value chain were identified and demonstrated. The foundation and key contribution of this thesis is a proposed patient-centric framework of design requirements for individualization of each oral dosage form feature. Additionally, an overarching product requirement for multifunctional individualization was determined, i.e., the simultaneous, independent individualization of multiple product features, which had not been addressed prior to this thesis. With a primary focus on product modularization, this thesis demonstrates that multifunctional individualization and the enhanced product variety crucial for affordable individualization may be achieved through reconfigurable modularization. Hot melt extrusion and fused deposition modelling were collectively deemed high-potential technologies for the fabrication of individualized products. However, this thesis reveals key material and manufacturing trade-offs between material diversity, dispensing precision, and geometric design flexibility, arising due to strict product and process requirements, which remain unsolved. Throughout, a systems approach is demonstrated to tackle existing interdependencies and, in future, navigate change on the road towards realization of accessible individualized therapy

A Core Reference Hierarchical Primitive Ontology for Electronic Medical Records Semantics Interoperability

Currently, electronic medical records (EMR) cannot be exchanged among hospitals, clinics, laboratories, pharmacies, and insurance providers or made available to patients outside of local networks. Hospital, laboratory, pharmacy, and insurance provider legacy databases can share medical data within a respective network and limited data with patients. The lack of interoperability has its roots in the historical development of electronic medical records. Two issues contribute to interoperability failure. The first is that legacy medical record databases and expert systems were designed with semantics that support only internal information exchange. The second is ontological commitment to the semantics of a particular knowledge representation language formalism. This research seeks to address these interoperability failures through demonstration of the capability of a core reference, hierarchical primitive ontological architecture with concept primitive attributes definitions to integrate and resolve non-interoperable semantics among and extend coverage across existing clinical, drug, and hospital ontologies and terminologies

Uncovering design topics by visualizing and interpreting keyword data

This paper describes a bibliometric keyword analysis from the international DESIGN conference. We combined related keywords to form DESIGN topics. After that, we visualized the connections between the topics. Our analysis shows that the web of science database does not contain the DESIGN 2012-14 proceedings. That is relevant for the conference organizers, because content visibility is important. The topic visualization benefits both contributors to and organizers of the international DESIGN conference, because it shows trending topics and indicates areas with room for improvement

How the reliability of external competences shapes the modularization strategies of industrialized construction firms

Firms modularize as they move into industrialized construction. Prior research highlights the importance of their modularization strategies, arguing that firms can either build the competence for modularization internally or can source them externally. To understand what shapes a firm’s choice to use external competences in its modularization strategy, we studied three leading construction firms. In this multiple case study, Alpha, Beta and Gamma are leaders in Asian markets, using reinforced concrete solutions in high-rise industrialized construction. Where external competences are available, our analyses show the work firms do to make them reliable and that their choice to use external competences is shaped by their reliability. Alpha modularized in a context with little available external competences, so it built new competences in-house; Beta chose to use the externally available manufacturing and assembly competences, using standards, remote monitoring and control of product architectures to make them reliable for their use in modularization; Gamma had available competences in the external context and initially sought to use them, but reliability concerns led to it modularizing by acquiring the firms to bring these competences in-house. Our contribution is to show how ensuring the reliability of external competences shapes modularization strategies. Further, we have identified actions that firms can adopt to make external competences reliable through: (1) use of international standards, (2) quality control procedures, (3) control of product architectures, and 4) acquisition of external competences. We provide implications for practitioners and policy makers seeking to transition to industrialized construction; and discuss new areas for research