VISUM has received Phase 1 funding under the SME Instrument- NMP 25 – 2014/2015: Accelerating the uptake of nanotechnologies, advanced materials or advanced manufacturing and processing technologies by SMEs. VISUM aims to develop and take to market an IR-spectroscopy-based platform for the rapid, easy integration and customisation of real-time monitoring systems for the food and pharmaceutical industries for improved process control, product quality and safety.
NIR is a non-destructive, reliable and accurate technique for monitoring chemical and physical parameters, whereby available fiberoptic probes has significantly improved the ability of NIR techniques to monitor and control processes especially using remote on/in line detection. While NIR is widely accepted as one of the most promising on/in-line process control techniques, a number of gaps are preventing its mainstreaming in industry, whereby typically NIR lab analysers are a) expensive, b) require time-consuming, costly and complex predictive models development and their further recalibration, c) generic systems do not properly fit to each particular product line or monitoring challenge and these mismatches are the source of major errors, d) on-line NIR optical interfaces are prone to biofouling and contamination which is a major limitation for accurate measurements and leads to high maintenance requirements.
The market reality is that there are a lack of players who are specialising in the development and customisation of fully integrated and customised in-process monitoring solutions and that can deal with the installation challenges that the technology is facing, such calibration of the optical device, addressing fouling, the influence of external factors affecting the system such as temperature, etc.; we tend to have instrument providers on the one side and manufacturers and processors on the other. So there is a clear ‘integration gap’. Industries willing to take the step to shift their laboratory analysis to the line (and this step involves an almost philosophical and cultural shift in the company, as opposed to merely a technological investment), cannot reasonably do so without a reliable integration, customisation and maintenance service that. A typical food or pharmaceutical manufacturer (irrespective of their size) will not be equipped with the in-house engineering and programming team to get NIR spectroscopy sensors reliably integrated and deployed in their processing lines. In fact, there is a general lack of availability of engineers and scientists with sufficient expertise working with spectroscopy. Consequently, companies that want to use NIR cannot find qualified people to help them do it.
The VISUM platform will overcome these limitations through its flexible hardware and software that will equip non-specialised engineers to perform the rapid, easy, and cost-effective integration of robust, bespoke solutions that are reliable and stable in manufacturing and processing environments. The VISUM® platform is based on an ‘integrated-by-design’ approach that has been born out of a mission to unblock the bottlenecks of the cost and complexity of integration of NIR-based solutions in the food and pharmaceutical industries, to enable improved product quality and safety, and improved process understanding and control for a first tier Process Analytical Technology (PAT) tool.
