The digital transformation as a success factor
Cathay Biotech produces polymers – an essential element for various chemical products. Its innovative production process uses renewable raw materials like corn instead of oil. Expanding the business meant reproducing a highly complex and sensitive laboratory process on an industrial scale. For that reason, Cathay Biotech needed a technology partner that could provide the full potential of digital manufacturing. Consistency, repeatability, guaranteed quality and greater efficiency – these elements were the secret to Cathay Biotech’s successful expansion, and the key to a new future for the bio-manufacturing industry.
Cathay Biotech’s Wusu plant adopts Siemens’ complete digital factory solution, covering the entire lifecycle of the plant in terms of design, construction, operation and maintenance, enabling Cathay Biotech to better monitor every step of its process, from R&D to production.
Large volumes of data – “big data” – enable Cathay Biotech to learn more about the principles governing research and production. Working with Siemens, Cathay Biotech scaled a highly complex and sensitive lab process up to industrial scale to expand its business. It has improved the efficiency of its entire bio-manufacturing system in the process, allowing the potential of digital production to be fully exploited.
The Siemens Digital Enterprise solution for Cathay Biotech covers the entire lifecycle of the plant in design, construction, operation and maintenance. The whole value chain is integrated with Siemens hardware and software; data is automatically accumulated, processed, and analyzed, and the results of the analysis flow back from production into the lab. As a result, Cathay Biotech can fully upgrade every step of its process, from R&D to production and back to R&D.
Tons long-chain dicarboxylic acids (LCDA)
Tons bio-based DN5
Tons bio-based polyamide
Using Siemens’ complete digital plant solution, Cathay Biotech’s Wusu production site has expanded its annual production capacity, building a strong foundation for continuing self-optimization and expanding its operations. Cathay Biotech is set to remain at the forefront of its industry; a trailblazer in the biotechnology sector.
To improve bio-manufacturing, we must [...] make higher-quality products more efficiently [...], production costs [must be] competitive [...] [and] mass production must be an option, as with oil-based production. Digitalization plays a critical part in all [...] aspects.Xiucai Liu, Chairman & CEO, Cathay
