Deploying MES in the Cloud: Challenges & Solutions – Part I

The life sciences industry is adopting manufacturing execution systems (MES) at a faster rate than any other vertical market. Our vice president, Christian Fortunel, was recently featured in Contract Pharma discussing the migration of MES technology to the cloud and how this approach is making MES more affordable and accessible.

In the first of a two-part article series, Christian gives an introduction to the cloud and explains the concept of single tenancy models, which are currently the norm within the pharmaceutical industry.

He considers the benefits of deploying MES in the cloud, including the ability to standardize processes across multiple worldwide facilities and the fact that, with permission, the cloud provides access to any individual in any location. There is also no upfront investment in IT when deploying in the cloud as the projects can be funded out of operating budgets. Additionally, the deployment of the solution is fast and brings with it on-demand scalability and business continuity.

With the availability of advanced tools to manage application security, testing and performance, adoption is increasing among pharmaceutical manufacturers. Christian explains that there are a number of deployment options, including in-house deployment, whereby the company purchases a web-based application in-house then migrates the data to the cloud environment. This gives them full control but at a high cost. Alternatively, moving to a private cloud in a corporate data centre maintains control but reduces IT support costs.

Read the full article to learn more about deploying MES in the cloud and the benefits that it brings.

Part 2 of the article series will be featured in the January 2017 issue of Contract Pharma.