Are you holding in-process material properly?

holding in-process material

In manufacturing, you’ll occasionally have to hold in-process material for long periods of time. It is important that the quality of these materials does not diminish during this time. In order to ensure quality, you must establish specific hold times for your in-process materials. Once these hold times are established, you must document any deviations from these hold times.

Have you established in-process hold times?

A company recently received this 483 observation: 

…..Deviations from production time limits are not documented.

Specifically, excursions in hold time are not investigated, trended or otherwise evaluated for product impact.  There have been multiple hold time excursions for multiple drug products.  Your firm’s Annual Product Quality Review was silent regarding manufacturing hold time excursions. Your firm’s Quality Manager qualified this practice by referencing an SOP which states “ln case during commercial manufacturing if the product-exceeds the established hold time period at any stage, sample shall be collected and shall be submitted to Quality Control for re-testing.”

For more observations pertaining to the holding of in-process material, or Manufacturing Controls in general, see Issue 1013 available today.  It features Packaging and Labeling observations on our rotating topic page 3  as well as Laboratory Controls and Medical Device Manufacturing Controls.

Our latest Quarterly Special Report a comprehensive 6 page report on observations pertaining to 21 CFR 211 Subpart F  and 21 CFR 820 Subpart G – Production and Process Controls.  There are observations on deviations, sampling, testing, and holding in-process materials and drug products, control of microbiological contamination and process validations.

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