Eye-opening industrial visit to TPL

February 2, 2013

5:00am
Alarm buzz !!
Ahhh, 5:00 only, will wake up after 2 minutes.
Alarm off…

7:00am
Alarm buzz !!
Ooo my goodness 2 minutes became 2 hours. These stuffs never use to happened during class lectures. J J
Woke-up, face wash and started finishing off the 3 hours pre-planned WAC assignment target in 1 hour. But was able to do only a part of it.

Got ready for the most awaited Industrial visit to T*****t Pharmaceuticals Limited(TPL). An opportunity, a very first of its kind arranged by Institute of Management, Nirma University in accordance with Students Advisory Committee. Although, an odd time, as next week exams are going to grill us. Still, I thought to “better live and extract of the most out of present and work for future”. Rather than “repenting in present and thinking negative of future”.

After having tasty “Uttapam with tea” at our canteen as breakfast, we rushed towards the buses arranged by the college.

There were four Industrial visits today, and ours was at TPL. It was led by our respected and youngest (don’t know the age, but atleast by heart J J ) faculty Parag Rizwani Sir.

Once the bus plighted towards the destination, Rizwani Sir started the journey with a good note after Saraswati Vandana.

“Hey guys, lets make this journey a memorable one with full of knowledge.”

We played antarakshiri with full of passion. The 45 minutes journey sounded like a picnic. Everyone sang, laughed and enjoyed like anything.

Finally we entered the TCL campus. It was an amazing feeling, lush green 268,800sqft campus, light smell of medicines and very peaceful environment. We met Rita mam and she enlightened us with the insights about the company’s history, its development and achievements. Felt like a proud Indian, after knowing this kind of advanced development (as reading so much negative about India in the newspaper, sometimes make you feel pathetic about the country).

Although, being an IT engineer the presentation sounded like jargons in the beginning. But the very next moment, all the terms were lucidly explained by mam. Few of the insights can be mentioned as follows:

 §  The company which was started by the year 1959 as Pharma Operations by Mr.U.N.Mehta in a Bunglow at Watwa.

 §  Later on in 1989, it was shifted to Indrad with manufacturing tie-up with Nordisk(a Denmark company), for Insulin formation.

 §  Raw material manufacturing started in 1992.

 §  In 2001, modernization and upgradation of formulation unit took place.

 §  Currenly, TPL had 4-5 plants in India. For example – At Sikkim for domestic supply, at Himachal for Rest of World(ROW) supply and moreover the plant which we visited was having supply to US and Brazil.

 §  Currently, it has presence in over 70 countries, Mr.Samir Mehta is the current Vice-Chairman of the company.

 §  Regarding the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), for handing fatal chemicals like cyanide.

 §  Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) team worked very efficiently taking care medical check-up of all levels of employees.

TPL, the one which we visited is having 1870 employees. It is having a capacity of producing 5000 million tablets, 500 Gelatin Capsules and 30 Insulin Vials.

I was astonished and listening to the above unbelievable data.

Now the time was to have a live and practical visit to the operations of the company. There were few small Godrej cabs. There were enormous safety and precaution measures throughout the campus. We wore doctor-like clothes (it reminded me of the last time I wore a similar kind of stuff during my school days in chemistry lab. This one was more sophisticated. Finally washing our hands with sanitizer entered into the real operation zone where were allowed to view numerous operation without glass windows. Huge Machineries, Well doctor-like dressed workers and Hygienic environment.

It was like a dream come true for me. I remember, the last time i had industrial visit some 5 years back during my engineering days. It was “Nuclear fuel complex” at Hyderabad.

Accompanied by the AGM Mr.Bharat Mehta, we were walking outside the ‘O’ zone (an open protected area where products are exposed to environment) in a corridor having both sides glass-fenced. At our left side, packaging works were going on, in closed area. At the right side, huge equipments were performing their non-stop duty.

Those were the machines which make, capsules and tablets. The answer to the following questions were getting explored in front of my eyes:
How all the tablets are of same size?
Who use to fill the powder in the capsules and close the cap?

How come the weights of all the capsules (of a particular kind) are equal?
Why there isn’t any strip of tablet, which I encountered in my small life of 24 years having 9 tablets instead of 10 (an example).
How come, packaging be done automatically?

How come a machine produce 3 lakhs tablet an hour (even when one will get tired, just counting 3000 in an hour)?

 I remember a famous dialogue as in most of the moviess. “Aaj meri aankhein khul gayi”

There were so many happenings, in that one hour tour, that which one to state and which to leave?
Finally, we came out of the operations department with lots and lots of practical knowledge and a real feel of Industrial visit.

I was so mesmerized by the overall process, that once I saw the canteen, then only I realized that I was hungry. The canteen reminded me of the canteen at my past job at TCS, Chennai.

Finally we ended our journey with a good note.

Had lots of fun during the return journey via bus and reached our very own campus.

At the end, i would like to thank everyone for the same, specially Rizwani sir (acting as a great company for us) and the officials at TPL.