As manufacturing business climates become increasingly competitive, the silos that companies have so often worked in are becoming increasingly integrated. Information is coming from everywhere, and manufacturers must not only make sense of the data, but also figure out better ways to align resources, bringing disparate sources of information together to create maximum agility in operations.
So many of the conversations I’ve been having lately with people in the process industries have been about trying to get the right information into the right hands. That means, for example, that not only do business leaders need to know the business implications behind the company’s actions, but so do operators; operators can help the company’s bottom line if they understand the business ramifications behind the decisions they make on a daily basis.
More on that specific point in an upcoming blog. Here, I want to talk about the laboratory management side of things, and what it means for transforming business. The folks at Thermo Fisher Scientific shared a paper with us recently that talks about all the external forces affecting business plans—from geopolitical and economic macro trends to global threats to health and the environment—and making change more unpredictable. Manufacturers need to have a proactive plan to address these new business realities.
In its latest annual global survey of CEOs, Gartner found growth—expansion into new markets and geographies—high on the agenda. That brings with it a host of questions related to the investment needed for innovation to the improvements in governance, compliance and risk management necessary to support expanding global supply chains.
As Thermo Fisher, which supplies analytical instruments and laboratory equipment, points out, this has everything to do with labs and laboratory management. To push the boundaries of innovation, companies in the pharmaceutical, oil and gas, food and beverage, metals and mining, and chemical industries must monitor performance and quality and be ready to take every opportunity to transform and grow.
The paper points to four key drivers of business transformation: integration, innovation, automation and business intelligence. Being constantly ready for business transformation is important because so many of the opportunities to expand are unpredictable and temporal. Immediate challenges such as conforming to local laws and regulations and harmonizing new operations with existing geographies combine with the constant pull of technology. And this isn’t just advances in instrument technologies, but also tangential technologies such as cloud and mobile computing, which are driving major changes that not only affect business velocity, but also lower entry barriers to increasing competition.
Like everywhere else in manufacturing these days, data is paramount in the lab, and business transformation depends on effective data management. “Even with the best laboratory instruments and information technology infrastructure in place, there is often little difference between solutions,” Thermo Fisher points out. “It is how the data is managed and applied across the enterprise that becomes the unique competitive advantage.”
And so is made the case for laboratory information management systems (LIMS). They provide the visibility into laboratory operations and outputs and strategies to make new insights actionable. LIMS are tightly integrated with other enterprise operation systems such as ERP, so insights from the lab have the potential to be even more central to businesses seeking true enterprise-wide agility. It’s not enough to collect the data; it needs to be actionable across the enterprise, enabling management to respond quickly to market trends or new regulations, and capitalize on cost-saving or margin-growing opportunities.
Here’s a closer look at the four pillars of business transformation: integration, innovation, automation and business intelligence:
Integration. From laboratory instruments to software systems and mobile devices, nothing in an enterprise should exist in isolation, unable to inform decision-making and support rapid business transformation. From tracking raw material shipments at the loading dock to assimilating data from different laboratory instruments, true visibility is possible only when an executive dashboard is built from comprehensive, near real-time data in open digital formats.
Innovation. Innovation is tightly aligned with information. A lab that is driven by data insight is able to discover avenues for innovation that exist only in a macro view. From accelerated drug discovery to more efficient ways to manufacture product, liberating laboratory data in dashboard form can be a new catalyst for continuous change.
Automation. Automating time-consuming tasks such as instrument calibration, compliance, user training and maintenance gives staff members more time for science and innovation. As businesses turn to new markets and just-in-time product innovation to compete, the ability to automate processes will become one of the most important characteristics of a business transformation-ready enterprise.
Business intelligence (BI). Many organizations declare success once they’ve acquired the ability to quickly and efficiently collect, store and organize knowledge. To be truly ready to transform quickly, however, organizations must use BI to take action. In many enterprises, if a manager or executive wants to see laboratory progress or productivity reports, for example, the IT department has to step in. Given this extra step, few executives take advantage of the rich data that surrounds them. Now, with more mature BI approaches enabled by cloud computing, lab personnel can create real-time dashboard reports that are accessible to managers and executives 24/7 via desktop, tablet or mobile device.
When data is presented to decision-makers logically and intuitively, Thermo Fisher argues, it fuels new strategic growth. “The first step, however, is liberating insights that are stored in laboratories around the world, enabling more smart people to proactively query and use vast stores of knowledge,” the paper contends. “When that happens, a business is truly transformed, its laboratory is a growth driver, the C-suite is fully engaged and investors couldn’t be happier.”
