By Mike Demos, OpExChange Coordinator for the SCMEP
Bausch+Lomb’s Greenville, South Carolina facility – a diamond-level OpExChange member with over 21 years of participation in the group – recently hosted a plant visit for fellow members. The focus of this session was the remarkable digital evolution the site has undergone over the past several years, and how these initiatives have improved operational performance, increased efficiency, and supported a culture of continuous improvement.
The Greenville plant, located on Pelham Road, has steadily expanded since it began production in 1983. This site manufactures both eye care and lens care solutions and currently employs over five hundred associates. Running around the clock, seven days a week, their high-volume production lines produce over 550,000 bottles of solution daily. In 2021, the plant achieved a major milestone by producing its five-billionth bottle. Their product reaches customers worldwide, though more than half of their output is distributed within the United States. Operating as an FDA-regulated site for Class II medical devices and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, maintaining stringent quality standards is a daily priority.
Digital Transformation Roadmap
To set the context for the visit, Tariq Shiblaq, Operational Excellence Manager for the Greenville plant, shared an overview of their digital deployment roadmap and the principles driving their approach. He emphasized that digital transformation is not simply about adopting innovative technologies – it is about fundamentally rethinking processes, increasing organizational agility, and fostering a culture of data-driven, continuous improvement. “It’s about people, about collaboration, and about driving meaningful, measurable change,” Tariq explained. He reflected on how this journey has reshaped the way Bausch+Lomb operates, innovates, and delivers value across the business.
Digital Performance Management
Marcie Knox, Process Reliability Engineer, introduced the group to the plant’s tiered performance monitoring and reporting system – a cornerstone of their digital transformation. Mirroring the structure of traditional lean manufacturing tier systems, this approach organizes operational reviews and reinforces accountability across every level of the organization.
In recent years, they migrated this system from paper and whiteboards to a fully digital environment, built on Microsoft’s Power Platform. Marcie demonstrated their Tier II dashboard, created in Power BI, which supervisors and managers use during twice-daily reviews to evaluate line performance, track KPIs, and identify issues. The dashboard allows users to drill down from a plant-wide overview into individual production lines, offering real-time visibility into OEE, downtime, quality, and yield.
To streamline data entry, the team also developed custom applications in Microsoft Power Apps for operators, mechanics, and quality associates. These apps, accessible via phones, tablets, and workstations, enable fast, intuitive input of downtime codes, maintenance issues, safety checks, and audit findings. Most data can be entered with just a few taps, and when thresholds are crossed or urgent issues arise, automated email notifications are triggered to alert the appropriate teams.
Since implementing this system, the plant has achieved measurable performance improvements: OEE has increased between 2% and 9% per line, machine uptime has improved by 223 hours compared to the previous year, and line yields have risen by 0.5% to 2.5%. Additionally, the mean time between machine failures has also increased, thanks to quicker issue detection and resolution.
Real-Time Location System for Inventory Management
In the next segment, Lonnie West led the group to a large observation window overlooking a 16,000-square-foot material staging area, divided into seven temperature-controlled rooms. These rooms are filled with tall stainless-steel carts, each loaded with bottles, caps, or other components destined for the aseptic filling room – the plant’s cleanroom production environment.
One of the plant’s persistent challenges has been maintaining accurate, real-time inventory visibility within this staging area. With hundreds of carts in constant motion, locating specific materials for production orders could be difficult, often causing delays and occasional line stoppages.
To address this, the team deployed a Real-Time Location System (RTLS) using Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology. Each cart is now equipped with a small electronic tag that emits signals at frequent intervals while in motion and at slower rates when stationary. Multiple antennas positioned throughout the warehouse receive these signals and triangulate each cart’s exact position, accurate to within a meter. A digital floor plan displays live cart locations in real time.
They also developed a web-based application that integrates the production schedule with cart locations. When an operator selects an upcoming order, the system immediately highlights the exact location of the required carts, improving speed and accuracy in material staging while supporting first-in, first-out (FIFO) inventory management.
Though initially considered cost-prohibitive, the project gained traction after the plant’s digital performance monitoring system revealed production delays linked to missing or misplaced carts. The RTLS project went live shortly after and has already delivered impressive results: it paid for itself in under a year and is now generating annual savings of approximately $250,000 through reduced downtime and material waste.
Machine Digital Center-Lining System
Scott Curtis, Systems and Controls Engineer, presented another innovation: a Machine Digital Center-Lining System implemented on one of their high-speed case packing lines. This automated line assembles corrugated shipping cases, fills them with finished product cartons, seals the cases, and conveys them overhead to shipping.
One of the challenges with this line was product changeovers – it runs eighteen different product configurations, each requiring precise mechanical adjustments at multiple points on the machine. Historically, associates would perform these adjustments manually, relying on experience and trial-and-error methods, which led to variation between shifts, longer setup times, and occasional product damage.
To address this, Scott’s team installed digital position sensors at each key adjustment point. When a product changeover is initiated, the machine’s control system automatically loads the target settings for each sensor. Operators adjust each machine point until the sensor confirms it is precisely in position, guided by a digital interface that displays both current and target values.
This system has standardized setup processes, reduced variability, and significantly cut downtime associated with changeovers. Early results are promising: a 2% increase in OEE, seventy-eight fewer hours of downtime annually, and a 1% reduction in scrap and rework caused by misaligned setups.
Condition Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance
Scott Martin, Senior Process Automation Engineer, guided the group through the plant’s predictive maintenance program, which combines condition monitoring sensors with advanced vibration analysis software. The program represents a strategic shift from traditional, schedule-based preventive maintenance to a more proactive, data-driven approach.
Today, more than ninety critical motors and gearboxes, along with forty air-handling units and water pumps, are equipped with sensors that continuously monitor parameters such as vibration, temperature, and operating hours. The system automatically flags early warning signs of mechanical issues – such as imbalance, misalignment, or bearing wear – and generates work orders with recommended corrective actions.
So far, this system has issued over thirty actionable alerts and has prevented at least three major equipment failures, any one of which could have caused costly production disruptions.
Electronic Validation and Lab Systems
Lindsay Smith, Operations Manager, and Jorge Cordero, Validation Manager, shared the site’s impressive shift from a paper-heavy validation process to a fully digital, FDA-compliant system. Jorge’s team is responsible for qualifying all equipment, processes, and software systems to meet regulatory standards – work that previously generated stacks of paper. One typical project, for example, filled over thirty binders with documentation.
The digital validation platform now enables all validation activities to be executed wirelessly via tablets and laptops. The system intelligently flags errors in real time, reducing review times and eliminating most documentation mistakes. In the past, responding to an FDA audit meant manually scanning thousands of pages; today, required documents are retrieved digitally in moments.
The labor savings alone have been substantial: a 46% reduction in time spent on validation documentation, translating to about half the workload for Jorge’s team. Approval times have also improved dramatically – from an average of five days to just one or two – and despite increased project volumes, headcount has remained steady. The cost savings are estimated at $598,000 annually, with meaningful sustainability benefits as well. The plant has reduced its paper use by the equivalent of one oak tree per month and saved energy and water resources in the process.
Enhanced Vision Inspection Capabilities
Lewis Maxey, Capital Engineering Project Manager, introduced an advanced vision inspection system integrated into one of the plant’s high-speed bottle descrambler and filling lines. This aseptic line moves bottles through a series of processes including descrambling, filling, capping, inspection, and packaging, all within a controlled cleanroom environment where operators are fully gowned to maintain product sterility.
As bottles exit the filling and capping station, a two-camera vision inspection system evaluates each bottle’s cap from different angles to detect defects like crooked caps that might compromise sterility. Any defect results in the bottle being ejected to a dedicated scrap bin – as sterile products cannot be reworked.
Further down the line, a radiometric fill-level inspection system verifies that each opaque bottle contains the correct amount of solution using gamma-based measurement technology. Any underfilled or overfilled bottles are also automatically rejected.
The impact has been significant: the system reduced waste by 0.5% to 2.1% per line, saving approximately $350,000 annually, while improving quality assurance and line capacity. Sustainability benefits include saving an estimated 32,000 gallons of water, 13,000 kilograms of plastic, and about 50 hours of annual production uptime.
Digital Workflows and Training
Finally, Tracy Debellevue, Senior Digital Trainer, shared how Bausch+Lomb is modernizing work instructions and training tools using a cloud-based software platform. Over the past year, Tracy developed approximately fifty digital applications, replacing paper-based job aids with interactive, tablet-based guides.
These digital work instructions incorporate images, videos, and validation checks to improve standardization, reduce errors, and enhance operator engagement. Real-time tracking of task completions and cycle times also provides immediate feedback and insight into potential bottlenecks. Despite the strict FDA validation requirements for new software, early results have been highly positive, with noticeable improvements in training efficiency and operational performance.
Closing Reflections: Innovation with Impact
The OpExChange visit to Bausch+Lomb’s Greenville plant provided an inspiring, firsthand look at how digital transformation can be thoughtfully and effectively deployed in a highly regulated, high-volume manufacturing environment. What stood out was not just the impressive array of technologies – from real-time location tracking to predictive maintenance and digital validation – but how deliberately these tools were aligned with operational goals, employee engagement, and continuous improvement initiatives. The visitors were particularly impressed with the cost-justification and business cases identified for these initiatives. The measurable results in uptime, yield, quality, and labor efficiency demonstrate the tangible value of combining lean principles with digital innovation. For OpExChange members, this visit offered not only practical ideas to consider in their own operations but also a reminder that successful digital transformation is as much about people, processes, and culture as it is about technology.
About Bausch+Lomb
We’re a leading global eye health organization that is dedicated to protecting and enhancing the gift of sight for millions of people around the world – from the moment of birth through every phase of life. Our comprehensive portfolio of more than 400 products includes contact lenses, lens care products, eye care products, ophthalmic pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter products and ophthalmic surgical devices and instruments. Founded in 1853, we have a significant global research and development, manufacturing, and commercial footprint with more than 12,000 employees and a presence in nearly 100 countries. https://www.bausch.com/
About OpExChange
The OpExChange, an SCMEP program, is a peer-to-peer network of manufacturers and distributors in South Carolina known for generating success for members through benchmarking and best practice sharing. Member companies host events and share practical examples of industrial automation, lean manufacturing improvements, and leadership development. It is an invaluable resource to South Carolina companies that provide access to others who are on similar improvement journeys. If your company is interested in participating in this collaborative effort to improve both the competitiveness of your operation and South Carolina, contact Mike Demos (mdemos@scmep.org). More information and upcoming plant visits are available on the OpExChange website www.OpExChange.com.
Be the first to comment on "Bausch+Lomb’s Digital Evolution in Greenville"