Reduce human intervention processes through automation

Automation is revolutionizing the pharmaceutical industry. It is estimated by McKinsey that about 50% of existing activities in the pharmaceutical and medical manufacturing industry can be automated. This shows immense potential for organizational transformation.

The pharmaceutical industry is a highly regulated and process-driven industry that can benefit manifold from automation. Whether it is design, product development, operations, or customer engagement, new technologies like robotic process automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence can result in better outcomes.

One research showed a five times faster growth for leaders in tech adoption compared to others. The advantages of automation reflect in terms of improved efficiency, a faster turnaround of deliverables, reduced costs, a shift in human focus on value-adding work instead of repetitive tasks, and building overall resilience. Analytics generated from automation also supports advanced data-driven decision-making for continuous improvements and excellence.

There is no question as to the benefits of automation for the industry. How can pharmaceutical companies leverage automation to their benefit? Let’s look at a few strategies.

An enterprise approach to automation

The adoption of automation in the pharmaceutical industry is still quite low and therefore there is a tremendous untapped opportunity here. While the industry is still largely dependent on human intervention, the world is changing rapidly. Those that lead the automation journey would have significant benefits both now and in the near-term future.

Take for example the role of automation in enterprise decision-making. Automation provides an integrated view of data from various sources such as clinical trials, laboratory testing, manufacturing, market complaints, etc. This leads to centralized visibility of operations and brings transparency. When this data is collected, stored, analyzed, and reported, it leads to more robust decisions making.

Technology can also make it easier to stay abreast of the evolving regulations and avoid risks of regulatory penalties by maintaining quality standards and improving compliance.

Here are four areas where automation can play a role in the pharmaceutical industry:

1. 1) Manufacturing: Several processes in manufacturing involve repetitive tasks like granulation, filling, packaging, labeling, sorting, transferring, tracking, etc. The use of automation ensures that these are done in a consistent and timely manner. When work orders are required, these can be prioritized through automation, and their progress tracked to ensure timely completion. These result in reduced paperwork. Moreover, electronic data storage results in easy data retrieval and better longitudinal tracking. Automated systems can run around the clock, resulting in faster time to market.
2. 2) Quality control: Automation can be used to assess product quality. This replaces the requirement for detailed human inspection. For example, vision systems can detect defects, and testing systems can analyze the purity of drugs. Another role is understanding evolving consumer needs using AI-backed data collection, which can then be used for quality management.
3. 3) Logistics: Distribution systems including warehousing and transportation can benefit from automation to record, track, and trace material from when it comes into the warehouse until it is finally released to the end user. This minimizes manual intervention and the potential for errors. It also creates data transparency that makes cross-departmental collaboration simpler and creates a trustworthy audit trail.
4. 4) Compliance: Regulatory compliance in the pharmaceutical industry is complex and takes up significant manhours. Technology can make staying compliant easier and more time-efficient. For example, automation can facilitate the review of information related to product registrations in different countries or regions by regulatory affairs. Up-to-date regulatory information can be accessed with clear oversight of compliance needs using digitalization. The product application and submission documentation process can also be streamlined. This reduces errors or duplication of efforts and makes submissions, tracking, and reporting easier.

With so many benefits of automation, would you like to know more about how we can make a positive impact on your business? Reach out to our experts.