Most manufacturing for food, beverage, and life sciences companies is batch production, with the scale ranging from tens-of-thousands of gallons, such as for major commercial beer brewers, down to a pound or less of a specialized pharmaceutical active ingredient. Regardless of scale and complexity, batch manufacturers must maintain consistency and control.
Consistency relates to both the product itself and the manufacturing process. Whether beer or a headache remedy, customers want a given product to be the same every time they purchase it. Manufacturers want every batch to turn out the same way as well. When the same ingredients are mixed in the same proportions and processed the same way, the effort should yield the same product. Yet, complications often emerge due to lack of consistency of ingredients combined with the difficulty of maintaining effective process control.