The subject and the research objective presented in this article is establishing of the relationship between quality assurance and implementation of cleaner production in the generic pharmaceutical industry through the comprehensive concept of continuous improvement. This is mostly related to application of Lean and Six Sigma tools and techniques for process improvement and their link to other known concepts used in the industrial environment, especially manufacturing of generic pharmaceutical products from which two representative case studies were selected for comparative analysis, also considering relevant regulatory requirements in the field of quality management, as well as appropriate quality standards. Although the methodology discussed in this conceptual and practice oriented article is strongly related to chemical engineering, the focus is mainly on process industry, i.e. production systems, rather than any specific technological process itself. The scope of this research is an engineering approach to evaluation of the production systems in terms of continuous improvement concepts application, considering both quality aspects and efficiency of such systems.

In this study, six 6- and 1,6-substituted-3-cyano-4-methyl-2-pyridones were synthesized in a continuous flow microreactor system. The syntheses were realized at room temperature and the obtained results were compared to those achieved within classical syntheses. In order to optimize the continuous flow syntheses and increase the yield of the products, the retention time in the microreactor was varied by changing the flow rates of the reactant solutions. Furthermore, the reaction was optimized for 3-cyano-4,6-dimethyl-2- -pyridone and 3-cyano-6-hydroxy-4-methyl-2-pyridone, which are comercially important in the pharmaceutical and dye industries. Both 2-pyridones were obtained in satisfactory yield of circa 60 % in less than 10 min. The resulting compounds were characterized by their melting points, FT-IR, 1H-NMR and UV?Vis spectra. The efficiency of the presented method for the synthesis of 2-pyridone-based molecules has promising potential for industrial production.