Top Life Sciences companies know that it is a race against time if they want to gain the leading edge in the market. Rising demand for personalized healthcare and rapid innovation and development of new products needs to happen in the shortest time and that requires greater agility in manufacturing in order to deliver the products to customers quickly. Traditional manufacturing configurations, which are geared towards mass production of fewer types of products, are no longer sufficient.
Yet, this needs to be made possible without sacrificing product quality, while companies still need to keep production costs low in order to maintain profitability. Combined with the added criteria for more sustainable products and production processes, checking all these boxes would be an impossible feat — unless Life Sciences companies turn to virtual solutions to enhance manufacturing and operations.
Virtual twin: where the virtual world meets the real world
While production processes can only exist in the physical world, Life Sciences companies have tremendous opportunities to leverage digital twin technology as a testing ground to plan and simulate processes and products—and then execute production flawlessly through manufacturing execution systems (MES).
Consider the following analogy: the development of the Global Positioning System (GPS) has made navigation today so easy that some people cannot travel anywhere without it. Navigation apps, easily accessible on smartphones, present an accurate digital representation of the real world. Navigation apps today not only provide users with an accurate map, but also use real-world data on real-time road traffic conditions to simulate and recommend driving routes that will get users to their destination in the shortest time.
A similar concept already exists in the manufacturing world. Virtual twins that go beyond the digital twin can create an accurate representation of real-world products, manufacturing facilities and processes—which, when supplied with real-world data in real time, can help companies simulate scenarios and recommend optimized plans that meet all of a company’s criteria as much as possible. This means products made with the most efficient use of sustainable materials, engineered to satisfy stringent regulatory requirements, produced first-time-right at the highest quality and with the shortest time to market.
For this ideal to become a reality, the digital twin cannot operate in isolation—it needs to be integrated with other manufacturing solutions and supported by an adequate data infrastructure and process changes where appropriate.
Leading Life Sciences companies have found success in 3D validation of manufacturing and virtual simulation, creating business value in terms of:
- 38% reduction in time to market
- 35% fewer prototypes
- 34% less engineering change orders (ECO)
Learn more about how MES and digital twin technology can help Life Sciences companies accelerate innovation in manufacturing and operations. In our eBook, Accelerating Life Science Innovation with Operations Digital Twin, produced in collaboration with Tech-Clarity, we explore:
- What Life Sciences companies need to do to keep pace with the industry today
- How digital transformation improves agility and the business value it generates
- Key considerations to realizing successful enterprise transformation
Download the Accelerating Life Science Innovation with MES and Digital Twin eBook to read more
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Tom Muth is a DELMIA Industry and Roles Portfolio Director based in Orange County, California.