Janifha Evangeline | Friday, 16 September 2022
The pharmaceuticals industry & life sciences industry when compared to various other industries is usually advanced in their application of technology. When it comes to operations, however, the pharma sector has been highly cautious in adopting new technologies so far, yet relying on the supply chain as well as the manufacturing paradigms which have been around for several years. A major reason is a regulatory environment where pharma firms operate. Also, high margins have conventionally been an important reason, resulting in a stronger focus on new product development as well as sales instead of focusing on optimizing operations.
Digitization has tremendous potential for enabling pharma organizations to address these challenges. While in all sectors, firms are enhancing operations via a set of emerging technologies collectively known as Industry 4.0. Particularly, that term means new tools and processes which are facilitating smart, decentralized production through intelligent factories, IoT, integrated IT systems, as well as flexible, highly integrated manufacturing systems. However, the evolving industry trends pose huge challenges for the pharma sector, particularly with respect to operations & the supply chain. Following are the escalating challenges.
Firstly, the global market needs organizations to operate across countries with an ever-growing number of SKUs which makes life-cycle management, supply chain management, as well as regulatory compliance, more complex, largely. Also, the number of supply chain partners is higher than ever before and a lack of integrated planning over the network stops real-time decision-making. Rising competitive price pressures need more efficient operations as well as supply chain management. At present, several firms operate with cumbersome, inefficient networks which struggle in responding to dynamic shifts in supply & demand.
Improving processes & Optimizing productivity Pharma industrial internet which is similar to industry 4.0 conceptualizes the digitalization transformation of the pharma product supply infrastructure right from the process of manufacturing the medicines to dispensing the medicines to patients. The industrial internet infrastructures produce & and a few or all medicines or sensor/apps/patient care processes capabilities/devices/services to the market while the Internet of Things is the ecosystem & market for utilizing, analyzing as well as monetizing the use of the medical products and ultimately patient care data.
Digitalization & industry 4.0, for the pharma sector, hold the potential to transform supply chain operations to a great extent, however, their main aim is to improve processes & boost productivity. Particularly, digitizing the supply chain lets enterprises in addressing the aforementioned challenges by enabling the following:
Faster decision making: As sensors throughout the supply chain can keep exchanging information on an ongoing basis, and rendering real-time insights over the value chain & enabling sales as well as operations leaders to take faster and more important decisions in response to changing conditions it will lead to significantly shorter lead times such as days instead of weeks/months. When paired with better planning accuracy, it will also decrease stockouts, & save the lives of patients ultimately.
Better operational processes & maintenance: pharma plants go through/experience high levels of downtime. Therefore, by leveraging analytics as well as digitization this downtime can be decreased by thirty-forty per cent greatly enhancing the overall equipment effectiveness. Also, innovative software solutions, as well as analytics, will help in integrating data, and changing information into actionable metrics. Machine-to-machine & ML algorithms help in seamless processes, predictive maintenance as well as automatic corrective actions.
Greater network scalability: pharma enterprises have highly complex supply chains. These include contract manufacturing organizations, suppliers of raw materials, 3rd party logistics providers, wholesalers & distributors to hospitals, etc. Enterprises can build global integrated supply chain networks via digitization which also includes cloud computing. It makes networks more scalable since the use of cloud-based networks makes it easier to link all players through a single integrated network, and even those with different IT architectures/ERP systems.
Manufacturing efficiencies & productivity gains: Automation & digitization will help in delivering significant manufacturing efficiencies in processes that include loading, filling, troubleshooting & replenishing. Also, technological innovations like Three-dimensional printing can help in making decentralized production cost-efficient even when the volumes are not very high. Advanced robotics, as well as AR, will render a step change in human-machine interaction & automation.
Pharma IoT solutions to enable patient outcomes The best instances of the pharma IoT solutions include the connected sensor wearables for Parkinson’s disease & multiple sclerosis patients. Through medication management, it can help in enhancing patient outcomes as well as the quality of life. Furthermore, the current medical device products like inhalers & insulin pump systems can also be enhanced with the implementation of a sensor as well as connectivity technologies in order to gather data for further care analytics & personalized therapy.
The road ahead Digitizing the supply chain will enable pharma firms in a greater way and help improve their supply chain & operations performance & ultimately reinforcing their financial outlook. Digitalization renders pharma companies a real source of competitive advantage when implemented effectively. Digitization holds the potential to transform pharma operations while opening a new door to step-change improvements in performance.
Pharma enterprises have to begin working on this journey, & taking immediate steps in order to digitize their operations as well as supply chains & develop a strategy & future road map for the years to come. Those firms that seize the opportunity/initiative can operate with greater agility, render themselves a sustainable competitive advantage, cost-efficiency & control & provide better care for patients ultimately.
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