Enterprise Life Sciences Labeling in the cloud. It seems as if everyone wants to move to the cloud. The cloud promises many great things such as, flexibility, minimized infrastructure costs, lower maintenance costs, always being on the latest version of the software, etc. But when it comes to the labeling of highly regulated data such as within the Life Sciences (Enterprise Life Sciences Labeling), cloud based technologies can fall short in several important ways. In other words, depending upon the specific usage of cloud technology, there can be too much or too little cloud.
Enterprise Life Sciences Labeling Design
At its simplest level, labeling begins with label design. A very small ratio of people in a life sciences company have the responsibility of label design. Software products that deliver cloud based label design capabilities are inherently inferior to client computer based label design software packages. They are inferior for one simple reason. It all comes down to a lack of product maturity due to a lack of maturity of available cloud based software development and delivery mechanisms. The Internet can be used very efficiently to move graphics. However, Internet based technologies are very poor when manipulating graphics. When large manufacturers often have as few as four or five persons who need access to label design capabilities, why should they tolerate second rate cloud based label design software capabilities when it is so easy to use an industry leading label design product on the workstations of the few who need it? But as we all know there is more to enterprise life sciences labeling design than label design and design management.
Compliance Requirements
Having part of your labeling data stored in the cloud and part of it stored in your enterprise systems constitutes the definition of information siloing. Since data is stored in several different places, the goal of having a single source of truth in actuality becomes having a complex understanding of the various data sources that comprise an elaborate and involved single source of truth. While complex interconnectivity between cloud and enterprise system driven data sources can be built, such systems do not offer a great deal of flexibility for the rapid changes that are required when compliance requirements change. Using the same regulatory data for multiple purposes such as product labeling, regulatory data upload to various trading partners such as the FDA GUDID, GS1 Data Pools and other trading partners as they arise offers maximum flexibility. The addition of new product attributes or the accessing of this information is much easier when you own your own data, know where it is and can get to it yourself.
Larger Life Sciences companies often have manufacturing locations in various parts of the World. Depending upon the physical location of a manufacturing plant, network connectivity, (including Internet) can be unreliable. If the data that is used for Enterprise Life Sciences labeling is stored in the cloud, and is not available at the time of production and labeling, line production comes to a screeching halt until connectivity issues can be resolved. As any of us who have experienced connectivity outages know, this is a major weakness of a cloud based label production approach.
The Hybrid Cloud
Innovatum delivers a flexible hybrid cloud model to maximize all of the benefits of cloud capabilities while minimizing the drawbacks. Enterprise Life Sciences Labeling design is client based and is built around the industry leading label design software known as BarTender by Seagull Scientific. Label approval management is accomplished through a combination of email and network technologies including options such as use of a browser through the Internet and or private networks. Label printing is accomplished anywhere in the World through the use of a browser without the need to load any software. Labeling data can easily be made highly available and is synchronized with other servers in real-time. This architecture makes it possible for manufacturing plants to print labels even while network connectivity to the outside world has been compromised. The system automatically synchronizes itself when connectivity is restored. This hybrid combination of architectures provides an ability to capitalize upon strengths and minimize weaknesses found within pure cloud based architectures.
