Authors, innovators, thought leaders and automation and control professionals are invited to submit abstracts in response to a call for papers from program committee of the 2014 ISA Food and Pharmaceutical Industries Division (FPID) Symposium.

The event, which will be held March 5-7, 2014, in Research Triangle Park, N.C., will bring together experts, vendors and end users in a two-day symposium focused on the challenges and issues in process automation and serialization, and how they are affecting food and pharmaceutical supply chains. Serialization — the assigning and marking each product or product component with unique identifiers — in both the food and pharmaceutical industries is regarded as essential to protect consumers and to reduce risk exposure for food and pharmaceutical manufacturers, says Dennis Brandl, president of BR&L Consulting Inc., who co-chairs the 2014 FPID Symposium with Alex Habib.

In addition to serialization, proposed abstract topics include:

• Track and trace.
• Validation.
• Cybersecurity.
• Radio-frequency identification (RFID).
• Process analytical technology (PAT).
• Batch controls.
• Manufacturing execution system (MES).
• Automation and serialization project management.

Prospective authors are invited to submit original contributions by September 23. If accepted, the final papers and presentation materials are due February 7, 2014. For complete submission information, visit www.isafpidsymposium.com/call-for-abstracts.