2025-03-02

Empowering Pharmaceutical Manufacturing with Advanced Benchmarking Insights

Project Summary

Cloud Drift embarked on a journey to build a SaaS solution. We delivered the system, supported its sales process and managed client onboarding to the tool.
Service
Client

Benchmarking Portal

1. The Challenge

Optimizing performance through Data-Driven insights

Pharmaceutical manufacturing plants face constant pressure to optimise efficiency, reduce costs, and maintain compliance with industry standards. However, plant managers often struggle to benchmark their performance against competitors, leading to missed opportunities for improvement. The lack of a comprehensive and reliable tool to identify pain points and track the most important KPIs in comparison to industry standards can result in suboptimal decision-making and unnecessary operational risks. The challenge was to create a solution that could quickly identify these pain points, provide actionable insights, and empower plant managers to optimise operations effectively.  
 
2. Our Approach
 
Collaborative development and stakeholder engagement
 
We began by carefully analysing and validating the complex logic that  served as the foundation for the benchmarking process. This required extensive verification to ensure that all variables and parameters were correctly represented. During the implementation phase, we focused on creating a robust architecture capable of handling the large number of data points and complex KPI calculations, ensuring that the tool’s performance remained optimal even with demanding benchmarks.
 
Given the intricacy of the calculations, our development team implemented a highly efficient code structure. We rigorously tested the system to guarantee that all data was processed accurately and swiftly, even under high loads. The tool was designed with future adaptability in mind: by making all forms, parameters, and KPI calculations configurable through the admin panel, we ensured that it could be easily adapted to other domains without requiring code changes. This flexibility enables the system to be transformed to suit different industries or operational settings, all while maintaining the high-performance standards and accuracy of the initial solution. 
Benchmarking Portal

3. Solution Highlights

Comprehensive pharmaceutical Benchmarking platform

  • Allows plant managers to compare their performance against a range of competitors and industry benchmarks, identifying areas for improvement.
  • Benchmarks  are summarised and anonymised, ensuring that confidential plant data is never shared but still offers valuable insights for improvement.
  • KPI Scoring Dashboard presents a total score, as well as specific breakdowns in different areas (e.g., cost efficiency, production output, waste reduction). The system flags KPIs that are either acceptable, slightly off but ignorable, or exhibiting dangerous trends that require immediate attention
  • Easy-to-use forms allow users to enter their plant’s data quickly and efficiently, minimising manual effort while maximising the quality of input.
  • Accurately adjusts for variations in product types and labor costs across different regions, ensuring fair comparisons.

4. Data Privacy Adherence

Protecting sensitive operational information

Considering the sensitivity of operational data, we implemented robust security measures to ensure all data entered and processed within the platform remains fully confidential. The system ensures that benchmarking comparisons are based on anonymised industry data, adhering to data privacy requirements.

5. Outcomes and Strategic Insights

The portal enables pharmaceutical plant managers to gain a clear, real-time view of their operations compared to industry norms. Key outcomes include increased operational efficiency through KPI optimisation, improved data-driven decision-making, and proactive risk management by identifying potential issues early. Additionally, the solution’s automated process allows for a shift from annual to rolling monthly or even live benchmarks, offering more frequent and actionable insights for continuous improvement.

This solution empowers manufacturers to track and actively improve performance with data-driven insights, becoming an invaluable tool for ongoing operational enhancement..