Paul Greene of corporate IT at Pfizer had interoperability and widespread enterprise integration on the brain February 3 when he addressed the ARC Advisory Group's Performance Driven Manufacturing Forum in Orlando, FL. He argued that processing, packaging, and control standards should be embraced industry-wide by packaging machinery OEMs as a means of helping pharmaceutical companies achieve greater interoperability and tighter integration of systems and data. Among his observations were the following:
• End users should involve themselves in the development of standards.
• Standards should be developed with longevity as a key objective even though we operate in a continuously changing technological environment.
• The pharma industry today is looking at biotech to reenergize the new-product pipeline.
• Integrated automation with widespread interoperability as a cornerstone is a key to cost reduction. Integrated systems reduce regulatory risk. Vertical integration of data is critical to support continuous improvement by all in the enterprise.
--By Pat Reynolds, Editor, Packaging World
