In the era of “digital China”, from “manufacturing power” to “science and technology power”, the goal and driving force of digital transformation are quite different. Most life sciences companies cite increasing their digital capabilities and convincing employees of the value of digital as the biggest challenges they now face. However, as people’s living standards improve and they have more control over their personal lives, they will be more inclined to proactive medical care in the future, rather than the treatment services that are commonly dealt with today.

As the world’s leading biopharmaceutical company, Pfizer Global Supply (PGS) has 42 manufacturing sites around the world capable of producing more than 23 billion doses of drugs per year. In 2016, the president of PGS set out to make this wonderful company even better and set out on a new global business journey. Rockwell Automation is a partner to mine operational data and transform it into seamless data-driven insights, enabling more effective information to help achieve its goal of “making breakthroughs that improve patient quality of life.”

But it’s not an easy task. PGS Manufacturing includes more than 30 pharmaceutical companies with a long history, diverse systems and data sets, as well as different process and equipment standards, and within such a complex system, even with insight into the problems that exist, it is difficult for employees to solve. Therefore, changing the scope of solutions used by the operational Technology (OT) layer for it is also a complex effort that takes many years to achieve. So where do we start with such a huge challenge?

Make a fresh start

In developing their digital transformation strategy, Rockwell Automation and PGS spent time understanding the challenges their business was experiencing and the technology landscape across the industry.

“What would it be like if we could start from scratch, today, and not be limited to what we’ve been doing?” Mike Tomasco, vice president of Pfizer’s digital manufacturing business.

In addition, PSG has strong executive support, so the vision is multi-faceted and the strategy is based on a focus on value creation. At the same time, Rockwell Automation has digitally upgraded PGS’s business model to help it achieve lean manufacturing.

“When we got together, we quickly noticed that these things go hand in hand and reinforce each other.” “Creating new organizational structures or processes the way you want them to work, adjusting how standardization is done, and so on, can be greatly enhanced by digital technology,” Tomasco said.

Success to date

As the digital transformation journey begins, PGS has documented significant improvements to date in the areas of cycle time, manufacturing throughput and output, and quality once in place. Records show that at one manufacturing site alone, the digital transformation program produced 3 million more doses of product than originally planned for 2019. This suggests that the key factor driving the success of the project is the willingness to explore new ideas and possibilities.

“Every time someone comes to me with a bold idea, I let them try it.” “They often don’t understand why we don’t have a committee to try to make a decision,” Tomasco said.

While the team made rapid progress in areas such as deploying remote collaboration tools, the complex infrastructure and digital transformation plan behind this proved that “digital” does not always mean “fast.”

“You have to plan it methodically and think about it, how can I benefit from it?” “That’s where we are right now,” Tomasco said. “Even though we’ve designed these base layers, the capability, the speed and the pace of what we can do is growing exponentially, but it’s because we’ve taken the time to build that foundation.”

Russell has something to say

Rockwell Automation continues to empower the life science industry with outstanding technology to build a new driving force for digital transformation, to help realize the multiple integration of data, business, application, infrastructure and organization, to comprehensively promote the digital management and operation mode of the whole life cycle, and to promote the digital upgrade of the life science industry.