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A 90-minute, 4-round basic Express simulation for Spanish vocational training (Formacion Profesional), module 1394 Tecnicas de produccion farmaceutica y afines of the Tecnico Superior en Fabricacion de Productos Farmaceuticos, Biotecnologicos y Afines (Real Decreto 832/2014).

The learner is Irene Lacasta, a newly qualified compression technician of a fictional generics contract manufacturer, through 2027, at a rotary tablet press that compresses an uncoated tablet from a wet granulate, with a feeder, pre-compression and main compression, punches and dies, an automatic weight control with a reject gate, a granulation room and an in-process laboratory.

Four situations set the year's course: a granulate still in quarantine at the restart, and how the granulate is checked (its release and loss on drying read, never a quarantined granulate compressed) and how the press is set up (on the in-process checks of weight, hardness and thickness, the speed inside the validated range); capping and a drifting weight in the spring campaign, and what is done with the capping (the cause first: moisture, fines, pre-compression, dwell time, punch tips; the automatic weight reject never switched off) and how the weight is controlled (the control loop on the trend); the restart after a humid summer and the August stop, and what is changed in the granulation (the end points set with the granulation room) and how the tooling is run (cleaned, measured and replaced on a plan); and a night when a batch fails its friability, answered by holding the batch, telling quality assurance and holding the next one, and how the year's events are recorded.

Three critical errors cap the round: a quarantined granulate compressed, the automatic weight reject switched off, rejected tablets blended back into the bulk. KPIs: batches released conforming, compression suite operating cost, tablets rejected a week and deviations and out-of-specification results. Lesson: the defect in the tablet is usually born in the granulate. Spanish primary, English parity.

Fictional plant, companies and people; real curriculum cited.

An introductory simulation that assumes no prior knowledge of the subject, designed for undergraduate courses. It also works in vocational and high-school programmes and in onboarding sessions.