In the rapidly evolving landscape of pharmaceutical clinical trials, have we found a solution for managing the complexities of clinical supply chains (CSCs)? Command centers provide real-time visibility and integration across various supply chain functions, enabling pharmaceutical companies to navigate challenges such as patient recruitment, diverse population needs and financial pressures. By offering a centralized interface for data-driven decision-making, command centers enhance the agility and responsiveness required in CSCs. This is important because pharma products are often in development stages and produced in small batches­—which in turn leads to less margin for error.

Command centers facilitate end-to-end visibility across supply planning, demand consumption, logistics execution and inventory movement. For instance, a pharmaceutical company implementing a command center might see a 30% reduction in supply chain disruptions, leading to timelier patient enrollment and reduced study delays. By linking disparate datasets, command centers empower supply chain practitioners to make holistic decisions and proactively address potential challenges.

Command centers offer six key benefits for CSCs:

End-to-end visibility: Command centers integrate data from various functions, providing comprehensive insights that enable stakeholders to understand the entire supply chain landscape. This capability allows for quick identification of bottlenecks and opportunities for optimization.

Multivariable correlation insights: By analyzing interdependencies among metrics, command centers help identify how changes in one area—inventory levels, for example—can impact service levels and patient outcomes. It’s easier to maintain balance with these insights. 

Risk sensing and tracking: Command centers proactively identify potential disruptions, such as supply shortages or logistical delays, allowing companies to mitigate risks before they affect and delay clinical trials.

Simulation and what-if scenarios: Users can simulate various scenarios to analyze the impact of different variables on supply chain performance. For example, planners can assess how changes in patient enrollment rates might affect manufacturing lead times.

Optimization and prescription: Command centers recommend actions based on data-driven insights, helping organizations optimize their supply chain operations while ensuring resources are allocated efficiently and waste is minimized.

Write-back capability: This feature allows teams to implement decisions directly within the system, streamlining processes and ensuring that changes are executed promptly and accurately. For CSCs, this command center feature requires human oversight to ensure compliance and quality guidelines. 

These capabilities enable organizations to enhance supply chain performance and resilience, make better decisions and optimize operations.

The journey to building a command center begins with establishing data connections across the various supply chain platforms that planners use daily. This process makes it possible to develop the integrated dashboards that serve as the bedrock for any advanced command center.

Once these visualizations and data connections are established, planners can leverage this connectivity to understand correlations between dependent metrics—such as service levels and inventory levels—that are often challenging to analyze on a transactional basis. Connectivity distinguishes command centers from traditional business intelligence dashboards.

As command centers evolve, they often incorporate simulation tools that allow users to manipulate key business drivers and observe the expected performance of supply chain metrics. For instance, planners can simulate how patient enrollment rates affect manufacturing lead times or assess the risk to patients if a supply is delayed.

Once you’ve developed your command center and are ready to implement it, there are several nuances to consider:

Data quality and integration across functions: Ensuring that data from various sources—including R&D, CSCs and sites—is accurate and seamlessly integrated is crucial for effective decision-making. For command centers, this poses a real barrier. Data often resides outside of a clinical supply team’s traditional planning and enterprise resource planning systems and is found in interactive response technology systems; clinical operations-managed systems like clinical trial management systems, regulatory information management systems and enrollment forecasts; quality systems; and third-party vendor systems.

User alignment across each supply chain function and R&D: To maintain agility, clinical supply teams work closely with clinical operations and their partners, as command centers are as critical for upstream and downstream teams as they are for the clinical supply team. Engaging end users early in the process to align on objectives and functionalities can help mitigate misalignment and ensure the command center meets their needs.

Change management and process change implementation: Although digital solutions like command centers seem like the right path to improve ways of working, CSC teams are often busy with day-to-day challenges. In addition, a typical standard operating procedure doesn’t work with CSCs, given the priorities and approach to decision-making is more nuanced and each trial’s success is prioritized. Therefore, integrating command centers usually requires changing and implementing new processes and governance. Preparing the organization for the cultural shift that comes with adopting new technologies and processes is also essential for successful implementation.

In addition, it’s critical to build a strong framework to measure the value of command centers. Even when an organization has a large inventory on hand, there can be delays in overall study timelines due to supply issues. That’s why inventory reduction, overall waste and scrap generated and study delays are some of the common metrics leaders use to measure the impact of command centers.

The time is now for pharmaceutical companies to take proactive steps to develop command centers that enhance their CSCs. This structured approach is necessary for building a command center that fulfills the vision of a high-functioning CSC, while ensuring minimal disruptions to ongoing operations:

Assess current processes, maturity and the need for a command center. Evaluate the unmet needs and current maturity of data and technology to identify how a command center can add value. We recommend first identifying the key metrics to track, capabilities to develop and a potential design of the command center.

Align on a vision and plan for the command center across R&D and the CSC. Collaborate with leadership to prioritize and define the value of a command center and align on how each function will benefit from the solution.

Create a roadmap with a plan to develop the command center while integrating end users. Create a detailed plan for building the command center and foundational elements—such as data—so that value generation starts early. This plan should include details for the command center build and the team and process changes needed to ensure adoption and value generation from the solution.

Build ensuring utilization of available capabilities. Integrate existing components, off-the-shelf capabilities and custom solutions to ensure scalability for future use cases.

As the CSC landscape continues to evolve, the need for innovative solutions like command centers becomes increasingly critical. Partnering with experienced pharma professionals, including outside experts, can help you take the right steps toward building a command center. This can be a multiyear journey—making the first steps vital for long-term success.