Magazine | Life Sciences

Lonza Optimizes Operations for the Digital Age

Digital transformation in life sciences companies is essential for ongoing business success in a constantly evolving industry

In today’s environment, the life sciences industry is challenged to accelerate innovation while optimizing production facilities and meeting increasingly stringent regulations. In light of this, many business leaders are inspecting the state of their current operations and looking for ways to streamline efficiencies and improve productivity.

Digital transformation can help you create your facility of the future. It can help integrate manufacturing processes with the rest of your enterprise, while improving quality, compliance, cycle time and yield. Through digital transformation, the power of information and advanced analytics delivers a distinct competitive advantage.

Digitizing Operations

Lonza, a leading global provider of integrated healthcare solutions, recently digitized their operations and in doing so, ushered in a new era of operational efficiency. The Switzerland-based company, founded in 1897 with approximately 15,500 employees, chose Rockwell Automation’s PharmaSuite Manufacturing Execution System (MES) software to digitize the operations in their manufacturing environment.

This turnkey implementation of the Lonza strategic vision of bringing the digital factory to nine former Capsugel facilities that manufacture drug capsules. The new solution was designed to help avoid disruptions during high volume periods of just-in-time orders for on-demand production.

Lonza will use PharmaSuite MES software, along with FactoryTalk® InnovationSuite software to better trace product down to the individual capsule carton and gain insights into performance and production. A segregation of SAP and PharmaSuite MES will also help avoid the disruption of a global enterprise resource planning ERP shutdown or required maintenance by enforcing workflows and collecting necessary information.

“Digital transformation is bringing new levels of operational efficiency, quality, process automation, and employee productivity to pharmaceutical companies globally, said John Genovesi, senior vice president, Enterprise Accounts and Software, Rockwell Automation. “We’re proud to be working with Lonza as they evolve their products, operations, and workforce towards their maximum potential through the use of Rockwell Automation’s software solutions.”

Rockwell Automation services all of the top ten global life sciences firms, offering expertise in scalable digital transformation, industrial analytics, and IOT solutions for fully automated, high-speed manufacturing environments. This deployment to nine sites will also provide 1500 employees across the globe new, operational technology-centric tools for reaching the next level of efficiency and quality.

MES: A pillar for industrial transformation

The global MES market is a key pillar of smart factories and digital business for manufacturers. Given this important role, Gartner recently conducted a Magic Quadrant study into the vendor landscape for Manufacturing Execution Systems.

For the second consecutive year, Rockwell Automation has been recognised as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for MES. This recognition validates the company’s vision and innovation for supporting digital transformation in the industrial sector.

“Customer reference reviews of Rockwell’s product, implementation and support were almost 100% positive, with some customers stating the support was among the best from organizations the size of Rockwell Automation.” – Gartner, Magic Quadrant for MES, Rick Franzosa, 29 October 2019.

Manufacturing process efficiency is crucial to reduce overall time to market. Eliminating paperwork, reducing errors, and maintaining high quality standards helps to increase throughput.

FactoryTalk PharmaSuite MES provides role-based optimization for each stage of the recipe lifecycle. Its open-content architecture paired with an intelligent upgrade engine provides a powerful system for growth in both batch and discrete processing.

In today’s increasingly competitive and regulated pharmaceutical environment, a flexible and integrated digital transformation is required to keep operations on the leading edge of pharmaceutical manufacturing.

The future is digital

Digital transformation is a growing global industrial capability that uses networking and smart technologies to integrate all processes – from sourcing and manufacturing to distribution.

MES software is defined as one of fundamental building blocks among the enabling technologies underpinning the ongoing digital transformation in industrial process control within pharma. It is capable of standardizing production processes, while at the same time integrating them and rendering them more homogeneous, with a positive impact on corporate organization and employee productivity, all without any negative effects on production processes.

To thrive in a digital world, pharma companies will need to deploy the latest technologies to streamline their business processes. Leaders in biopharma are taking a more strategic approach to technology in many areas including digital transformation, augmented reality and advanced analytics. The latest digital technologies are crucial enablers of success connecting and integrating the commercial, operational, and scientific areas of organizations.

The digital age is well and truly upon us. Investing in software and technologies that render data and information more useful and transferable to people who need them drives this digital transformation – helping organizations improve productivity and efficiency.

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