Karsten Smet, CEO of ACI Group, looks at ways the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries can adapt to changing times

Market and sustainability trends are positive drivers for Saltigo, despite the agro downturn. Andrew Warmington met up with the new CEO at Chemspec Europe

Chemspec Europe 2024 in Düsseldorf on 19-20 June was the first for the new CEO of Saltigo. Michael Schäfer had been with the parent company Lanxess since 2007, mostly in the Material Protection Products business unit, which he headed for ten years before moving to take over at Saltigo in February.

A centralised knowledge management system can help chemical manufacturers retain valuable tacit knowledge from retiring or exiting workers, according to Andreas Eschbach, CEO and founder of Eschbach

Dr Anahita Khanlari, industry marketing director, chemicals, at AspenTech, looks at how digitalisation can expedite the journey towards circularity

Elizabeth Dionasari of EcoOnline Global looks at how chemical risk management can be addressed with new technology

According to the International Labour Organisation’s statistical data on workplace accidents and diseases, health issues are the single biggest cause of work-related deaths globally.

Bachem, the world market leader in peptides, has automated and digitalised one of its core business processes, solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS). The company describes this as the start of its journey to Industry 4.0. The process is described in detail on the company website (www.bachem.com/news/bachem-journey-to-industry-4-0/).

Japan’s AGC has announced that it has developed an integrated operation and quality management system for chemical plants called ‘Chopin’. This follows test runs at a fluorinated resin ring plant at the Chiba site in 2019, which reduced working time by more than 11 hours/day and generated savings of Y100 million through more stable operation.