In the life sciences industry, digitization helps drive operational efficiency, ensures regulatory compliance, accelerates innovation, and more; however, many organizations struggle to assess whether their digital capabilities are keeping pace with quickly evolving industry needs and digital transformation goals. This struggle is, in part, due to limited benchmarking tools available to assess digital maturity within manufacturing organizations. So, here’s what to know about incorporating the BioPhorum Digital Plant Maturity Model.

What is the Digital Plant Maturity Model? 

The Digital Plant Maturity Model (DPMM) is a structured framework developed by BioPhorum to help organizations evaluate and advance their digital capabilities within and across areas in manufacturing, laboratories, quality assurance, supply chain, and information technology (IT). While it focuses on overall digital plant maturity, it can also be tailored to benchmark laboratory informatics, supply chain management, and automation maturity in manufacturing. By benchmarking your operations against these levels, you can identify gaps, set priorities, and align your strategy with broader organizational goals. 

Benefits of Performing a Digital Plant Maturity Model Assessment 

Disconnected systems and manual workflows across manufacturing, quality, laboratory, and supply chain functions lead to inefficiencies and underutilized data. The DPMM emphasizes the importance of integrated and collaborative systems that unlock the full potential of data-driven innovation, compliance, and operational excellence. In addition, as regulatory bodies continue to emphasize data integrity and traceability across the data lifecycle, achieving higher maturity levels ensures that these demands are met effectively, safeguarding compliance and promoting enterprise-wide agility. 

Production and support operations do not function in isolation but consist of deeply interconnected systems. Comprised of the people, process, hardware, software, and data, the entirety of an organization can be characterized as a collection of systems. 

The DPMM provides a framework for evaluating both the maturity of individual operating units and how well they are integrated across the enterprise. By examining these interdependencies, the DPMM ensures that digital transformation efforts are successful, enabling organizations to achieve greater operational efficiency and consistency in meeting business objectives. This dual perspective supports informed decision-making about technology investments and resource allocation, fostering a collaborative approach to enterprise-wide improvement. 

Lastly, the activity of executing a DPMM assessment has the added benefit of generating momentum for change. By providing a clear vision of maturity levels and integration needs, the model acts as a catalyst for action. Current best practices in organizational change management highlight the importance of creating a shared sense of urgency, engaging key stakeholders across all functions, and establishing quick wins to demonstrate progress.  

The DPMM supports these principles by offering measurable milestones, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and aligning transformation goals with organizational priorities. Additionally, its data-driven insights ensure that change efforts are not only strategic but also sustainable, helping organizations build the internal capability to continuously adapt and improve. 

Challenges of Benchmarking with DPMM 

While benchmarking can be the beginning of a transformation, it’s not without its challenges. One challenge lies in the limitations of the DPMM. While the framework is undoubtedly powerful, the rapid pace of technological advancements may require additional interpretation by a knowledgeable expert, particularly when considering more advanced states. 

Additionally, the current version of the assessment is confined to manufacturing, laboratory, quality assurance (QA), supply chain, and IT operations. Adopting a custom approach that includes all functions of the product lifecycle – regulatory affairs and process sciences groups – can deliver even greater benefits by incorporating a more comprehensive view of data flows, compliance requirements, and cross-functional collaboration. By integrating these additional functions, organizations can streamline regulatory approvals and optimize process development, ultimately driving greater efficiency and innovation across the entire product lifecycle   

Another challenge is the need for industry expertise and resource availability. Benchmarking requires significant time and experienced personnel, which may be a hurdle for organizations with limited resources. Identifying experienced professionals to execute the assessment can be difficult, as it demands a unique combination of expertise and perspective. Having personnel with broad knowledge across industries and technologies offers substantial benefits, but such skillsets can be hard to find. (You can read more about how Clarkston’s experts have supported companies to develop a systems capability roadmap here and here). 

The complexity of systems within manufacturing organizations also poses a challenge. Many organizations operate with a combination of legacy systems, bespoke solutions, and modern tools. Mapping these varied systems to a cohesive maturity framework requires considerable effort and expertise.   

Interpreting the DPMM framework to align with a company’s specific operations can be complex. Applying a broad model, like the DPMM, in a way that addresses organizational or departmental goals is both critical and demanding. The ultimate value of the benchmarking output heavily depends on the experience and insight of the assessment team, highlighting the importance of skilled interpretation and customization of the framework.   

Steps to Evaluate the Digital Maturity of Your Operations 

Step 1: Define a Clear Plan 

What types of information will leadership need so they can endorse the assessment?  

Like any project, the project sponsor will need data to secure leadership support so that resources are allocated, roadblocks are cleared, and the effort is considered a strategic priority. Leadership will want to clearly understand the benefits, risks, and the investment required to complete the assessment. The project manager and the project sponsor work together to outline the project’s scope, timeline, key objectives, required resources, and potential risks. The project manager should include time for analyzing the results and preparing the final report. Additionally, they’ll need to forecast the next set of deliverables following completion of the assessment.  

Step 2: Identify Resources 

What resources are required to complete the assessment?  

A cross-functional team is needed to ensure a comprehensive assessment of systems, processes, and data workflows. These participants should include: the project manager, lead facilitator, analysts, subject matter experts (SMEs), technical system owners, business process owners, and data owners for each of the key functional areas across manufacturing, laboratories, quality assurance, IT/automation, and supply chain. 

Step 3: Finalize Leadership Support 

How can we ensure leadership support? 

With this information, you will be prepared to finalize leadership support. Establish regular progress updates with leadership as the assessment progresses via your existing program management office (PMO) channels. Refine the project plan and gather participants and leadership for a kickoff event. 

Step 4: Perform the DPMM Assessment 

What is unique about your operations? What are known problem areas that need more attention during the assessment?  

The assessment itself requires thoughtful design and execution. The lead facilitator, along with business analysts, develop a set of preliminary questions as a thought-provoking exercise for participants that will be used to tailor the DPMM assessment. The participants, guided by the lead facilitator and analysts, will identify the systems currently in use, their levels of integration, the people supporting the systems, and the systems’ effectiveness in supporting the intended use. This data will be used by the lead facilitator to evaluate operations against the five maturity levels, considering whether processes are primarily manual and siloed, or if advanced predictive analytics and integration have been adopted.   

Step 5 – Evaluate and Report 

What are the next steps after the DPMM assessment is completed? 

Once the assessment is complete, the lead facilitator should prepare a detailed report that identifies actionable steps for achieving the next level of maturity. The report should highlight specific areas for improvement for each part of the organization, as well as across enterprise operations. Enterprise opportunities might include implementing a data warehouse, specific system interfaces, or adopting advanced analytics. Finally, the project sponsor and lead facilitator present leadership with the assessment results and proposed actions, including a high-level roadmap for progressing to higher maturity levels. This roadmap should include both short-term wins and long-term strategic initiatives. Ensure that the strategy aligns with broader organizational goals, such as improving supply chain resilience, enhancing quality, or scaling production capacity. 

Assessing Your Operations’ Digital Maturity 

As the life sciences industry continues its digital transformation journey, evaluating your manufacturing operations against BioPhorum’s DPMM is a strategic move. It not only highlights areas for immediate action but also ensures your technology investments align with enterprise-wide goals. 

Have you considered where your manufacturing execution system (MES), laboratory informatics, supply chain, or business intelligence systems stand on the DPMM scale? With a clear roadmap and commitment to progress, your lab can evolve into a powerhouse of efficiency, compliance, and innovation. Clarkston Consulting has the expertise and experience to help organizations meet their digital goals in a pragmatic and compliant way. Contact our team today for guidance.