This distribution helps manufacturers to maximise their utilisation; downtime on equipment and operatives contributes to overhead, which is amortised across orders, raising prices and lowering productivity.

Further, it’s important to recognise that productisation won’t solve everything.However, it will give us a starting point.. Marks refers to this as “chaos to order theory,” a phrase she coined after a superintendent on one of her first jobs described his positive experience working with bathroom pods.

The pods created a welcome amount of certainty and consistency in his day.He could count on receiving them, he knew exactly what they were, and he could schedule his other work around them.This is the power of productisation, Marks says, elaborating on her previous metaphor by saying that when you build a “man-made reef in the middle of the ocean... ecosystems build around it.”.

Bringing up digital twins, she reiterates that it’s only through productisation, not process, that we’ll have the level of certainty needed to be able to do things correctly and to the best effect.However, she cautions that we can’t just jump straight from our current position, which she likens to “crawling out of the primordial ooze,” to an end goal of mass customisation akin to ordering a bespoke, Nike shoe.. Jaimie Johnston says that at the moment, there are still too many breaks in the digital chain to get us exactly where we need to go.. “We never get operational data in a particularly sensible format,” he says.

“You know, the statutory approvals process isn't digital.”.

He says that to get the benefits we’re seeking, all of these other aspects need to be reconciled first, and one of the things that will enable that is productisation.The good news is that there is already some strategic collaboration happening in these areas.. As many new medicines are developed by start-ups, if we can ensure good guidance and information then we can get things right from the start.

There are already collaborative groupings of start-ups, and linking these with the information flow on alternatives and economics could be highly beneficial..The group agreed that framing the driver for change around waste reduction and sustainable economics, together with greater public and business awareness and, would help to push the agenda in the right direction.. Regulators and regulations can be enablers for change, rather than inertial.

The more consistent and proactive enablers, the better; they could create an environment where positive change can happen quickly within a clear, consistent economic playing field.. New technologies, including AI models to help predict the presence of harmful impurities alongside developments in impurity detection at parts per trillion levels, could be extremely useful.In conjunction with testing/development facilities, these technologies could accelerate problem finding and solving..