What others are saying about Alan
It’s always encouraging when people involved in the industry, feedback comments or observations. These may be helpful to you.
Martin Lush, Vice President, NSF Health Sciences (previously, David Begg Associates)
“Your autoclaves are costly, complex and hugely important to your business. Even minor problems and mistakes can have a dramatic impact on your product quality and operationally efficiency.
For such a critical item of equipment you must only seek advice from those you trust and respect. Alan is the only person I ever recommend to DBA clients with autoclaving 'issues'. His encyclopaedic knowledge and 'hands on' expertise' are simply unrivalled anywhere in the pharmaceutical industry.
Alan is also a rarity in the consultancy world...he actually provides practical and workable solutions to complex problems!”
Peter Monger, Pharmaceutical Consultant (formerly Principal Medicines Inspector, specialist in sterile products manufacture, UK MHRA/MCA)
“It has been my good fortune to have worked with Alan Heavey for more than ten years now. During that time I have many times called on Alan’s wealth of experience and expertise to supplement my own meagre knowledge of sterilisers and sterilisation.
That Alan has the depth of understanding to solve the most intractable problem almost goes without saying, invariably the response begins something like: “Yeah, I remember something similar a few years ago….” Possibly more important though, is that he has the discipline to establish the essential systems and procedures to ensure that these problems don’t occur in the first place.
I can think of no one that I would trust more to get things right with these absolutely critical processes and pieces of equipment.”
Former Director of Quality Wyeth Biotech UK, now of GXP Consultants Ltd
“Like many companies who had been operating autoclaves for many years we considered ourselves pretty expert and had even gained an understanding of the importance placed on steam quality by the EU authorities. However when
we started to hit problems with wet loads and marginal chemical indicators we struggled to understand what was going wrong. After numerous initiatives we were still at a loss and the need to get back into operation to support a multi million dollar product was becoming increasingly urgent. We decided on a fresh pair of eyes in the form of Alan Heavey who spent about a week in our US manufacturing unit. As well as finding the problem and providing us with a solution he generously shared his autoclave expertise prompting one technical expert to remark, "I thought I knew autoclaves till I met this guy".
we started to hit problems with wet loads and marginal chemical indicators we struggled to understand what was going wrong. After numerous initiatives we were still at a loss and the need to get back into operation to support a multi million dollar product was becoming increasingly urgent. We decided on a fresh pair of eyes in the form of Alan Heavey who spent about a week in our US manufacturing unit. As well as finding the problem and providing us with a solution he generously shared his autoclave expertise prompting one technical expert to remark, "I thought I knew autoclaves till I met this guy".
Overall a rewarding and cost effective experience.”
Lynne Hill, Quality Consultant and formerly Global Head of Quality, Lonza Biologics
“When Alan founded his business back in 1989 I had just started my QA career in the Biotech industry and was on a very steep learning curve. I was a couple of weeks into my new job and reviewing autoclave validation reports when Alan’s letter introducing his business fortuitously landed on my desk. Although I had no prior experience of autoclaves I knew something was awry with my company’s autoclaves even though the report I was reviewing had been approved by the sterilisation company contracted to perform the routine maintenance and qualification of the autoclaves.
I phoned Alan and from that day until now Alan is the person I contact when I need solutions to sterilisation issues.
Back in 1989 Alan impressed me because not only was he an engineer who performed the qualification work to an exceptionally high standard but he provided practical solutions to address the root causes of the many problems we were experiencing with our autoclave sterilisation. The result was a total quality system for the operation, maintenance and qualification of our autoclaves an achievement I am very proud to have been involved in.
Over the years I have continued to consult Alan for professional advice, practical assistance in troubleshooting and validation and relevant and memorable training.
I value Alan’s expertise when it comes to sterilisation and what’s more it always comes with a smile!”
