In an online forum titled ‘How Industry 4.0 can Strengthen India’s Pharma Sector’, business leaders from Rockwell Automation demonstrated (through insightful talks and virtual factory walkthroughs) how manufacturers in the pharmaceuticals and life sciences sector were able to deal with complexity and scale of supply chain challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic through dynamic decision-making aided by Industry 4.0 technologies.
Organized with the objective of providing a public platform to demystify the critical role of Industry 4.0 in helping the industry provide a range of essential health and medical supplies during the pandemic, the session illustrated how manufacturers were able to streamline production of everything from hygiene products and protective gear to medical equipment and vaccines over the last year. It highlighted how new age digital technologies have played a critical role in global vaccine discovery, production, and distribution despite facing unprecedented challenges with demand & supply shocks and regulatory hurdles at every stage.
The session started with a talk on ‘How Industry 4.0 is enabling India to transform itself into the Pharmacy of the World’ by Dilip Sawhney, managing director, Rockwell Automation India, where he set the tone by explaining how the Indian drug makers and healthcare brands are transforming their businesses to achieve higher productivity amid rising complexity and compliance requirements. This was further demonstrated by a virtual guided tour of the Digital Transformation Experience Centre (DTEC) to give the attendees a glimpse into the future of the industry.
The tour was followed by a comprehensive presentation by Arvind Rao, global business director, Information Software, titled ‘Digital Transformation in Life Sciences’ with case studies from across the world. During his session, Rao took the audience through the entire Industry 4.0 digital transformation journey from the ‘Static & Manual’ towards a ‘Self-organizing, Dynamic, & Demand Driven’ state across a range of solutions from Operational Technology, Information Technology, Data & Analytics, Process, Workforce, Automation, to Security.
Answering a question often raised by decision makers about where their companies should focus investments and how they should get started, Rao explained, “Many of the life sciences organizations we work with are searching for the business accelerant that will supercharge their performance. They believe digital transformation could be their answer but what’s more important than the specific technologies you’re considering are your objectives. The first step in digital transformation is achieving clarity on your business goal.”
Through the rest of the session, audience were taken through a series of case studies showcasing how innovative digital transformation solutions enabled by Rockwell Automation have led to market leaders realizing double-digit impact with increase in revenue of up to 10%; decrease in operating costs of up to 12%; and reduction in quality review cycle times, up to 50%.
This was made possible by:
• Accelerating speed to market with a digital thread that connects across the entire product lifecycle—from research to patient delivery.
• Deriving insights from across the supply chain to drive quality improvements, streamline compliance, and deliver the critical products patients need.
• Leveraging disruptive technology with a flexible, scalable, and open platform that enables continuous improvement across operations.
• Enabling safe, uninterrupted production with an integrated security design that brings IT and OT together.
Closing the program, Sawhney said, “Over the last four decades, we have built strong relations across the healthcare, pharma & life sciences ecosystem in India with several success cases. This includes teaming up with industry leaders like Dr Reddy’s Laboratories to deploy multiple solutions that gave them business advantages like flexibility, time to qualify, & scale, to partnering with home care companies in repurposing their lines to produce sanitizers during the initial days of the pandemic.”
As the second wave continues to rage in India, he said it has become clear that companies will need to keep navigating increasingly complex processes and quality control requirements with the constant pressure to get to market first. “As a global leader in industrial automation and digital transformation, we remain committed to helping our partners meet these emerging challenges and achieve their business goals,” Sawhney concluded.