A leading life sciences company with a portfolio spanning cell biology, DNA, RNA, and protein analysis, drug development, human identification, and molecular diagnostics needed to eliminate downtime and data loss in its manufacturing operations by selecting a more reliable and easy-to-maintain compute infrastructure for its batch manufacturing operations. The company had been relying on hyperconverged server clusters and software-based fault tolerance to manage process automation and data required for FDA regulation.
The company had been relying on server clusters to provide computing and data collection for its critical manufacturing processes. The team faced a number of costly challenges, from component failure to unplanned system outages, that resulted in data loss or downtime. This impacted their ability to pass FDA audits and GMP reporting and led to crippling manufacturing disruptions and product waste. If a cluster server failed, the team often did not have immediate support and knowledge to rebuild the node requiring additional recovery time. Additionally, the team needed to be able to track their VCAP (version change, audit control) process to map system changes to specific batches and vice versa.
SOURCE : STRATUS TECHNOLOGIES
INDUSTRY

Risks

  • Server clusters insufficient for life sciences manufacturing
  • Eliminate downtime and data loss in batch manufacturing for a life sciences company
  • Ensure data reliability for FDA regulation, GMP, and VCAP
  • Standardize control architectures for three sites across a multi-site campus
  • Enable manufacturing operations team to maintain and support computing infrastructure without high-level IT support
  • Stratus ftServer® and Stratus ztC Edge™ for fault tolerance and data collection
  • Rockwell Automation PlantPAx® software for campus-wide production control
  • Eliminated downtime and consolidated software workloads by replacing six hyperconverged server clusters with Stratus Edge Computing
  • Standardized and scaled computing across different life sciences facilities and use cases
  • Reduced the FAT/SAT process from weeks to hours; completed full validation in one week
  • Cut total cost of ownership (TCO) by 15-20% and projected duty cycle of 15 years for compute platforms
CASE STUDY | Edge Computing in Life Sciences