Digital Systems Need Orchestration, Not Just Investment, to Deliver ROI

Nobody sets out to build a manufacturing facility that underperforms. Yet in life sciences, capital projects—that are designed to be digital-first—often don’t generate the forecasted ROI. The capital team may go live by the appointed date and even stay under budget, but once they exit the picture and the operations team takes over the daily work of running the facility, issues start to arise.

For reasons that aren’t immediately clear, the facility doesn’t operate as intended. The operations team encounters persistent friction and misalignment, especially between the way they work and the digital systems that should help them work more effectively. The facility may require an extended hypercare phase—and have to shoulder the costs associated with engaging vendors longer than anticipated. Operators are working across multiple digital systems that lack the context and connectivity to drive efficiency and decision-making. The facility is consistently missing production targets, and there isn’t one clear party or technology to blame.

Investment Requires Orchestration

This disconnect doesn’t arise from a lack of attention or investment. Capital projects typically include substantial investment in digital systems, with dedicated teams to select and implement each piece of technology in the digital architecture. The problem is that this effort is overly focused on the technology itself, with each team working independently on their piece of the puzzle. Also missing is the context in which operators will use the technology, the vision that unites the systems to ultimately make their jobs easier.

To bring all of the disparate parts together requires orchestration, a holistic perspective that unites a collection of well-built digital technologies into a cohesive system that functions as a whole. When this orchestration approach is incorporated, teams can move out of their silos and consider how their technologies connect with one another.

Unfortunately, most capital projects aren’t structured for digital orchestration. Digital systems are often addressed after the operational strategy and design are complete, and with a go-live date looming, teams are more focused on standing up the technology than considering the people who will eventually use it. Operations leaders typically play a limited role in the early stages of capital projects relative to digital design. They often help define strategic objectives and review functional specifications, but they may not have the time or context to fully anticipate the downstream effects of those decisions.

It’s not until the capital team hands over the facility that misalignment with digital systems begins to surface. Unlike a piece of equipment placed in a suboptimal location, which anyone can see and flag immediately, digital bottlenecks can easily remain hidden until they slow operations down the line. At that point, companies face costly rework and unplanned downtime, pushing ROI further and further out of reach.

A “Digital EPC” Approach

There is an opportunity to approach digital systems differently—designing them to align with operations from inception. We already have the model for it on capital projects: the EPC. An EPC firm is brought in early in a capital project to manage the engineering and facility design from a comprehensive, holistic perspective. Most facilities lack a counterpart to the EPC on the digital side, but a “digital EPC” would serve a similar role, orchestrating the digital systems and determining the operational objectives the digital systems need to support. Not just which technologies to deploy, but what outcomes they need to drive: outcomes like faster time to release, stable and scalable operations, and lower operating costs. Alignment on those objectives requires input from capital, site leadership, digital, IT, OT, manufacturing, process engineering, MSAT, and quality—bringing them together, early in the project, all in the same room.

To translate objectives into action, the focus then needs to shift to how operations teams will execute their work. This requires a detailed understanding of the physical operations of the facility so the digital teams understand how their systems need to support real workflows. Through this approach, the gaps between systems, and the resulting inefficiencies, come to the forefront. Solutions can’t be designed if the problems stay invisible, but if an operator must open three separate screens, or jump between systems, or says, “This would be faster if I used paper,” the problem becomes impossible to ignore.

The output of this process is a digital basis of design (BoD), a cohesive mapping of how all digital systems connect, what data flows where and with what context, and how the whole system supports the operational and business objectives set at the project charter. A BoD for the physical facility is standard best practice; the digital BOD should be as well.

Designing for Operational Excellence

Prioritizing operational excellence and digital-first process design during the build phase sets facilities up for what matters after go-live: achieving baseline goals, reaching stability, and then optimizing for speed and efficiency. The right partner is there every step of the way.

For example, we recently worked with a customer whose facility was missing its production targets. They believed their MES was the problem and were evaluating a full system replacement—a costly and disruptive initiative. Our team investigated and found that the root cause wasn’t a problem with the technology itself; there were challenges in how the system was being used, how it was maintained, and the processes surrounding it. By addressing those factors, the facility achieved a 20% year-over-year production increase and avoided a multi-million-dollar investment in a new platform.

That was a significant outcome for a facility that was already running but underperforming. Starting earlier is even better. When our team is involved in capital projects from the beginning, we design for operational performance from day one.

Better Performance, Faster Path to Patients

The “digital EPC” model is a path to higher returns on digital and capital investments. When digital systems are orchestrated to work cohesively, grounded in operational realities, and aligned to business outcomes, the facility goes live ready to perform. Instead of struggling to meet production targets, the focus can shift to continuous optimization, leading to better outcomes for the organization and a faster path to the patients they serve.

Stellix’s OpsCore framework helps manufacturers unlock ROI from digital and capital investments by exposing the hidden gap between how facilities are built and how operations actually need to run. Reach out to me if you’d like to learn more.

Join our upcoming webinar at 11 AM EST on Wednesday, 9 December, to learn more about OpsCore and how Stellix can help you design for Operational Excellence.