MICHAEL DOYLE
Accelrys, Inc., 10188 Telesis Court, Suite 100, San Diego, CA 92121, USA

Abstract

Creating a great product today involves juggling a multitude of competing pressures – the need to shrink time-to-market, ensure product ROI targets while being able to achieve regulatory and sustainability requirements, and of course support product claims and IP goals. This holds true for consumer goods such as shampoo, new drugs, or revolutionary plastics, coatings and lubricants.  Over time organizations have deployed various systems to manage components of these challenges: ERP (Enterprise resource planning), PLM (product lifecycle management) , and MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems). And these systems have proved incredibly useful at getting products to market. Yet, companies across industries are struggling to become more efficient in their New Product Development and Introduction (NPDI) processes. Better access to innovation and key product development data and information plays an important role for the PLM, MES and ERP systems to drive significant process, time and cost efficiency improvements across the commercialization process.

Transforming an idea into a profitable product—whether a drug, shampoo, specialty chemical or industrial adhesive—today involves juggling a multitude of competing pressures. To ensure revenue growth in a highly competitive and global marketplace, companies across industries need to slash development costs and shrink time-to-market while delivering the performance, quality and customization that consumers demand. To comply with an ever-growing list of retail, regulatory, environmental and sustainability requirements, they need to not only think differently and act with greater agility in their design, development and manufacturing practices, but also document everything, so that product claims can be supported and compliance can be proven and tracked. And finally, they need to be able to protect valuable IP while also taking advantage of more open, collaborative R&D practices and cost-saving outsourcing opportunities. 

Achieving all these objectives simultaneously is a tall order, requiring a very high degree of coordination, especially as the activities that drive product innovation (from lead discovery and compound design and formulation through to production s ...