Eli Lilly sees the Digital Plant as a Way to Accelerate Improvements

The second annual ARC Industrial Digital Transformation Top 25 report continues to highlight companies that are succeeding at integrating digital technology into all areas of business, fundamentally changing the way they operate and deliver value to customers. This year’s Top 25 companies include many who made the list last year, together with some new companies. Positions were reshuffled due to the changing business dynamics and weighting components of the analysis: financial indicators, transformation indicators, and collective community intelligence.   Eli Lilly sees the digital plant as a way to accelerate improvements, and the company ranks #23 in this year’s report.

The last few years have been particularly challenging ones for industrial growth. We’ve been cornered from all sides: pandemics, political unrest, climate change, and macroeconomic uncertainty. The world as we knew it a few years ago has capsized and the boundaries of the new normal are constantly shifting and realigning. Digital transformation is now an imperative and digital transformation leaders can be found across many different industries, sharing common traits and visions, helping organizations overcome complex challenges to innovate and stay agile. Several key trends were identified in this report: importance of sustainability, actively seeking to scale solutions in multiple dimensions, benefits of focus and prioritization, empowering the operational front line, recognition that culture change is required, and active outreach to others.

ARC Advisory Group defines digital transformation as: “The integration of digital technology into all areas of business, fundamentally changing the way companies operate and deliver value to customers. The organization is typically charged to innovate and improve across multiple dimensions such as: digital/disruptive technologies, culture and leadership, operational agility, workforce engagement, customer experience, environmental, social and governance, and competitive performance.”

This is the twenty-third in a series of blogs in the digital transformation space.

Eli Lilly

Eli Lilly’s core business is the discovery, development, and manufacture of pharmaceutical products. Throughout its history, Lilly has prided itself for its innovative research, corporate responsibility, and contributions to the pharmaceutical industry. They see the digital plant as a way to accelerate improvements. For example, the company reduces ergonomic risks by using robotics for lifting boxes and ensures quality through real-time analytics rather than after-the-fact testing. These technologies also drive cost efficiencies. Additionally, Eli Lilly has been investing in technologies such as blockchain and digital twins to improve supply chain traceability, logistics and inventory management, and quality and regulatory compliance.

The digital plant and technologies that go along with digital transformation, such as robotics, data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and the industrial Internet of things (IIoT) - promise greater efficiency. Eli Lilly has been advancing in applying these technologies to its pharmaceutical manufacturing organization, which the company claims has enabled it to make better medicines. The company established a role dedicated to corporate global reliability, which involves helping silos to communicate, making them more comfortable, not always leading but at least interacting.

Road Ahead

Digital transformation is a continuous journey and ARC will continue its research in all areas related to digital transformation. We want to learn more about what is working – and what isn’t – as companies pursue their unique digital transformation activities. A lot is happening both on the supplier and user sides, and we would like to know about the pitfalls and success stories. The ARC Industrial Digital Transformation Top 25 report will be published on an annual basis. With this being our second year, your feedback is very important to us as we will continue to investigate new approaches and measures to adjust our methodology, identify successful digital transformation initiatives, and help the industry as a whole digitally transform. We are on this journey together!

Learn more about ARC’s Digital Transformation Council

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