next generation pharmaceutical article: an insight into business process management with agilepoint
next generation pharmaceutical article: an insight into business process management with agilepoint
• road to the top next generation pharmaceutical (us) • recruiting for clinical trials next generation pharmaceutical (us) • the right approach to risk next generation pharmaceutical (us) • a culture of continual improvement next generation pharmaceutical (us) • preparing for a potential pandemic next generation pharmaceutical (us) • the smiling face of hr next generation pharmaceutical (us) • brilliant biopharma next generation pharmaceutical (us) • pandemic preparedness next generation pharmaceutical (europe) • transparency in clinical trials next generation pharmaceutical (europe) • how to become a healthcare heavyweight next generation pharmaceutical (europe)
the publication
coverage areas
ask the expert
the leader
interviews
roundtables
webcasts
events & partners
subscribe
links
sample pages
sponsors
client login
current issue
next issue
past issues
european edition
selected issue
past issues
an insight into business process management with agilepoint(the following story is fictional. any resemblance to real people or incidents
is purely coincidental.)john devlin, coo for headwater pharmaceutical, leaned back in his chair and
sipped a fresh-brewed cup of coffee. a sly smile formed at the corners of his
mouth and he couldn’t help but chuckle. “that’s a far cry
from last time!” he murmured to himself. less than a year ago the company
was confronted with a serious process emergency in puerto rico that could have
crippled it badly. only through heroic efforts – and a lot of money –
were they able to avert disaster. after barely squeezing through this crisis,
john knew the company needed to find a way to avoid a similar occurrence. the
solution turned out to be a business process management system.
he took a deep breath with great satisfaction. “the decision to implement
agilepoint was right on the mark,” he thought. he couldn’t believe
the difference having a true bpm system had made.
the process problem that arose this time was a lot different but could have
had more devastating consequences. fortunately, the proper infrastructure was
in place and the problem was handled quickly and efficiently. but that puerto
rico thing…that one didn’t go so smoothly.
as the aroma of the hot brew filled the air, the memories of the day
came flooding back….
“what do you mean it could take two weeks!!” the voice on the other
end of the line shouted. “we don’t have two weeks, devlin! we need
this, and we need it now!”
there was no use arguing with ron bartlett. although he was ceo, but he didn’t
understand the magnitude of the system change he was demanding. it seemed like
a simple request: add an additional qa validation step at three critical points
in the production process of the company’s best selling product, include
a form that documents the qa action, and make sure electronic copies of the
form go into the company database and to our regulatory control department.
if only it were that easy!
it all started when an fda investigator made an unscheduled visit to the puerto
rico plant. he found a number of inconsistencies in the output of machines in
two of the three lines and slapped a 21 cfr violation on the plant with an immediate
“cessation of production” order. stopping that plant was going to
cost $1 million a day.
when bartlett received the news he immediately contacted the agent and hammered
out a solution that included a process change and a $100,000 fine. but there
was one condition: the process changes needed to be in place within 48 hours
or the plant would be shut down permanently. that’s when he picked up
the phone and called john devlin.
“look ron, i know this is important. but it’s not as easy to change
one of these automated processes as you might think. it’s all wrapped
up in a “black box” program that came from it. if we try to do a
quick work-around it could cause more problems. i need to bring kevin into the
loop to do a rewrite and find out how big a job this really is.
“and i have to warn you, ron, the last time i asked it for a process
change it was two weeks before it was done. those guys are buried over there.”
and that’s when bartlett exploded. john knew he had to act – and
act fast. getting it resources wasn’t going to be easy, though. like in
many organizations, kevin nash’s it team was responsible for a lot more
than supporting the company’s business processes. they take care of everything
from the company website, to the phone system. from the video conferencing center
to internal security systems. from the local area network and desktop pcs to
the dozens of company laptops and hundreds of company cell phones. not to mention
every piece of application software in use at the company. and, they’re
stretched pretty thin.
“look, john, i don’t have the resources to deal with this right
now,” kevin said.
“kevin, i understand. but we don’t have a choice. what’s
it going to take?”
“well,” said kevin, “a couple of guys that used to work for
me are doing some contract programming. i could probably get one of them to
do this. but it won’t be cheap and i can’t promise we can meet the
deadline.”
the next two days were some of my most stressful here, john thought to himself.
but kevin pulled it off. and he was right: it wasn’t cheap.
about two weeks later kevin nash popped into john’s office. “hey,
john – you got a minute? there’s something i want to show you.”
“sure, kevin. what’s up?”
“you remember that puerto rico fiasco?”
“please, don’t remind me. my head still hurts.”
“well,” said kevin, “i’ve done some research and found
a product that could make that type of challenge a thing of the past. you remember
how difficult it was to modify the program for that process change? i found
a bpm system that can make those changes in minutes, not days. and john, even
you could do it.”
“hold on, kevin. i’m no programmer and i don’t want to be.
don’t try to push this development stuff off to me because…”
“woah, john! slow down. this is not what you think. let me ask you this,
have you ever used microsoft visio?”
“sure. who hasn’t?”
“so you know how to drag and drop icons and draw logic lines to design
a process. right?”
“of course.”
“with this agilepoint product that’s all you need to know how to
do in order to design or change a process. yeah, there’s some set up work
we have to do in it, but once that’s done our business units can create
or change a process very quickly without having to come to my team. and oh by
the way, i don’t have to worry about a non-techie trashing my systems.
it’s incredible. this is the soa level solution we’ve been looking
for. and john, the price is right. we’re starting an evaluation next week
and could have it in production in a couple months. i wanted you to know because
this will make both our lives a lot easier. in the end, it’s going to
make the it department much more responsive to changing business requirements.”
“tell me more about agilepoint,” john said.
kevin began to explain:
“agilepoint is what’s being called a “next generation”
bpm solution because it’s one of the few systems ever developed that truly
embraces the soa initiatives the industry has been striving for. let me describe
how different it is in terms of what happened during the puerto rico crises.
“the reason it was such a problem to make the changes we had to make,
was because we had to uncouple the existing process parts, recode the parts
that needed to be changed, do a complete regression test on the entire process,
fix the other parts that blew up because of changes, and recompile and test
the whole thing multiple times before we could release it all. it’s easy
enough to design the processes, but it still has to do all
the coding behind each of the steps.
“now stick with me, john, and i’ll explain how this will never
be a problem again if the agilepoint product works like it says it does.”
“hold on, kevin,” said john with a somewhat confused look. “you
mean when the business people and the it folks sat down and put those very slick
diagrams together, it still had to go back and code each one of the steps in
the process? like, build little mini-applications?”
kevin shrugged and nodded. “it worked well for the design aspects of
getting business and it to speed that part of the processes developed, but it
didn’t remove any of the time and effort that still had to go into the
coding part…whether it was a new process or a change. and the human-to-human
activities were even more time consuming, anyway, let me go on and i think you’ll
see why we’re moving ahead so fast with our evaluation of agilepoint.”
“let’s say we’re using agilepoint to redesign all our processes,”
kevin continued, getting almost conspiratorial in his focus. “instead
of having to code each of the steps into singular mini-applications, agilepoint
lets us develop each of the steps by using abstractions...basically, customized
pieces of actual functionality with xml wrappers around each part. since they
are loosely coupled pieces of functionality, they are completely reusable .net
components that can be used to develop and/or change executable visio processes…without
any recoding, regression testing, compiling…anything. even you could do
it with an hour or so of training, john.”
“listen to me, john,” kevin continued, getting more immersed in
the conversation. “imagine a business manager sitting down with an it
developer, dragging and dropping functional parts onto a visio pallet, describing
the configuration requirements from english drop down menus, connecting the
steps in the process…then simply clicking on execute
to make the entire process live!” the incredulity was starting to show
in john’s face.
“we can build live processes in minutes rather than hours or weeks. we
can make changes on the fly that would normally have taken hours…days…sometimes
months.”
“john, our biggest concerns in it are far beyond keeping things working
internally and trying to best execute with customers and trading partners. our
biggest challenges…and expenses, by the way…have always been in
making sure our processes were in order, being able to meet all the restrictions,
controls, and reporting requirements, and every other bureaucratic mandate that
hits us in our business.”
“trust me. being able to leverage any investments we’ve made or
will make in microsoft tools – sharepoint, infopath, biztalk, windows
workflow, .asp.net…you name it…agilepoint brings it all together.
it’ll make us more agile and provide us more manageability and control
than we ever thought possible.”
john leaned back but watched kevin list out all the positive elements that
were driving the agilepoint evaluation: leveraging microsoft investments; ability
to tap any database through webservices; speed; agility; a low cost of entry;
a staggering roi when kevin estimated the time and cost savings just within
it itself. at the end, john told kevin he’d back him in whatever decision
he made, expressing his vision that, if agilepoint delivered, it would bring
headwater pharmaceutical into the next millennium.
kevin was right. the deployment of agilepoint went smoothly and headwater put
all its processes into the system.
then two days ago another problem arose. this one had far greater human impact
implications. fortunately for everyone, agilepoint was already in place.
headwater provides a significant amount of medication to third world countries
through the who. one of the products is a very successful agent in combating
diphtheria. diphtheria is a highly communicable disease with a five to seven
day incubation period. once symptoms present, an infected person can die within
a few days. children and those over fifty are especially at risk.
availability of the antitoxin is generally not a problem. but two factors converged
to create a desperate situation that put hundreds of thousands of lives in jeopardy.
first, outbreaks occurred in both west africa and southeast asia within days
of each other. second, 1.5 million doses destined for asia were lost when the
ship carrying the cargo was struck by a typhoon. several containers broke lose
and went overboard. one of them contained the antitoxin.
within hours lars svengaard, who director of emergency services, called headwater.
he asked for half a million doses to be airlifted to jakarta. the medication
was available but it was in three different countries. there was no process
in place to mobilize the necessary human, documentation, transportation and
logistical resources to pull it off.
john was prepared to call a meeting of directors and start flooding the lines
with emails and faxes. just then kevin nash called. john told him about the
problem. kevin suggested using agilepoint to create an emergency relief process.
“we can reuse some of the it components that have already been built to
streamline this effort,” said kevin. “we may only need to deploy
the process for this single event but so what? code-free deployment is one of
the reasons we bought agilepoint.”
john was skeptical but kevin insisted and they started to build an ad hoc process.
they incorporated the necessary customs documentation from the various countries,
air bill documents and dosage instructions. within one hour they had deployed
it world wide. it coordinated the activities of three production warehouses,
the closest who representatives, transportation resources and the authorities
in jakarta.
there were a few hang-ups, but in the end the three antitoxin shipments reached
jakarta within 27 hours of the call from lars. everyone was rightfully proud
of what they accomplished.
and john? “i knew all along we could provide the medication but thought
it would be a nightmare to pull it all together” he mused. “being
able to create a code-free emergency response process in agilepoint changed
it from a nightmare to a focused, intense race to save lives. and thanks to
agilepoint and the efforts of our people, we won the race.”
john leaned back in his chair and sipped a fresh brewed cup of coffee. a sly
smile formed at the corners of his mouth and he couldn’t help but chuckle.
for information about agilepoint contact ascentn at 650-968-6789. or e-mail
inof@ascentn.com. visit our web site at
http://www.ascenen.com/ngp.html.
backother articles by ascentnstaying true to bpmas the burgeoning business process management (bpm) arena has begun to establish its own software niche, separating true bpm systems from imposters offering simply ‘reusable code’ is crucial.
companies in this issue454 life sciencesaccelapureadvanced research technologiesaerotekapplied imaging corp.ascentnasuragenaxis healthcarebioebioscanbrand pharmcellumenchemical abstracts serviceciscrpclinicallcluster resourcescogenicscomplete medical groupcompupharmacritical process filtrationdatatrak internationaldigitecemcenvision pharmaepidaurosesoterix inc.exiqonfrontier scientificgenvaultglemser technologiesharris interactivehypheni-advantage software ...i-many, inc.ims healthincapsintelloriquumlearningware inc.master control internationalmds pharma servicesmeadwestvaco healthcare ...mmgnanogennexcelcom bioscienceodyssey therapenguin computingpharma marketing newspharmatest services ltd.phoenix grouppsi pharma support internationalreaction biology corp.refresh softwaresequenomstemcell technologiesthe learning key inc.transparent logicvcg & associatesvinceravirostatvorsite corporationwatermeadowwaterswilson dow groupwolters kluwerxme & ccxxradia
contact details:web site
© gds publishing ltd. all rights reserved. privacy policy sitemapbest viewed at 1024 x 768 resolution
Acceuil
suivante
next generation pharmaceutical article: an insight into business process management with agilepoint Kevin Nash Titan Viper TT FS Stained Mat - Forget rumors... we do the news! go into the minds of rf video! Tackle Test - Tackle Test - UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT Not for Publication SOUTHERN ... WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2008 Message Board - WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW ... Tajunnanvirtaa sähköisessä muodossa Yahoo! Cinema Kevin Nash Photo Gallery - DVD-Video. Read dvd-video reviews and ... Kevin Nash - Love Ya Nine Timez : Läs recensioner och jämför ... Kevin Nash vs HHH - منتديات مكس كويت www.MixQ8.com NASH REVIEW Wrestlemag.com Yahoo! Answers - Dreamcard #6 ( i will post this later too)? TNA Wrestling, the Good, and the Bad - Associated Content Kevin Nash Dvd : Shop, Find, Compare, and Price - AOL Shopping Nash Resorts - Cavagnac Feedback كتكوت > WWE Kevin Nash vs The Rock Smackdown after ... Movies - WCW - Kevin Nash: The Outsider! - VHS - 1999 NASH Family Tree Yahoo! Respuestas - big dady sexy nash's Perfil Pregunta y Respuesta Yahoo! Respuestas - ¿Os gustaba KEVIN NASH como luchador? KEVIN NASH NWO R-TECH BRAND NEW LOOSE FIGURE JAKKS WWE (aukcja ... Leave Alluc.org Buy.com - TNA: Wrestling Figures - Kevin Nash 6¨ eBay.co.uk - nash, nash Clothing Footwear, Clothing, Waders, Shoes ... triple h vs kevin nash hell in a cell Options [الأرشيف ... ماتش أسطورى Goldberg vs Kevin Nash vs Sting vs DDP من ... NIGHT OWL MK. II -- WCW Nitro Trading Card Game/Decks TNA Wrestling News - The Wrestling Post kevin nash - Vídeos - Kewego Риболовни принадлежности Filstar - онлайн магазин 1996 -WCW ROSTER The WCW roster for January 1996 was as follows ... TNA PPV Genesis - WWE The Punisher (2004) - Production Photos - Yahoo! Movies Kevin Nash WCW the Greatest 4 life! WWE - Hbk vs Hhh vs Goldberg vs Kevin Nash vs Orton vs Y2J ... Details of Kevin Nash Monster Pursuit Vol1and2 (4discs)-DVDRips ... TNA Impact Tapings Report: Detailed rundown of Nov. 1 and Nov. 8 ... Kevin Nash- filmografia - FILMWEB.pl phillyBurbs.com Blogs Historic reunion in TNA Online World of Wrestling Forums » Forums » iMPACT! » The Kevin ... NASH'S SACRIFICE: Not ready to be off the front page yet Who were the original members of the wolf pack in wcw? - Yahoo! UK ... Kevin Nash {Big Sexy}'s MySpace layouts & themes - CoolChaser Kevin Nash Pursuit Strongbow 52'' Net - DinPris.net - Find det ... RDS - Nash est mon "MVP "de la mi-saison WWE Kevin Nash vs The Rock Smackdown after WrestleMania XIX ... Big Carp Tackle, LLC ::... Ultimate Wrestling :: Kevin Nash Carp Fishing UK » Reviews » Kevin Nash Combat TT Bivvy Carp Fishing UK » Reviews » Kevin Nash Pursuit Rods Reseñas del usuario sobre Kevin Nash Screen Saver: envía tu reseña. Montell Jordan《Kevin Nash Interview》_乐库_新浪网 WWE KEVIN NASH凱文納許吊卡人偶-420含運費: - 露天拍賣--簡單、好玩 ... Molecular basis of intrinsic macrolide resistance in clinical ... أسماء بعض المصارعين الحقيقيةو ... ماتش جامد ولازم تشوفو Kevin Nash -VS- The Rock ...