Accelrys,
Inc., a scientific enterprise R&D software and services
company, today issued an industry-wide call to close the productivity
gap from innovation through commercialization that is slowing product
development and time-to-market and hampering competitiveness for
science-driven organizations.

Currently,
only 25% of projects in industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to
aerospace result in the commercialization of new products, according to
IDC Manufacturing Insights. Of the 25% of products that make it to
market, 66% fail to meet original design or consumer expectations.

“There
is growing consensus that new product development is increasingly
ineffective—especially for science-driven innovation,” said Joe Barkai,
research vice president, product lifecycles strategies at IDC
Manufacturing Insights. “Scientific-driven research and development
organizations are at a critical juncture—their homegrown systems no
longer meet the demands of today’s fastest-to-market environment. They
need to be managing the innovation cycle in a new way, and with the same
rigor that they have managed their commercialization processes.”

To
accelerate innovation and profitability across industries, Accelrys is
challenging science-driven organizations to focus on closing the
productivity gap from innovation through commercialization. Accelrys
also is introducing a scientifically aware enterprise platform as a
component of a broader strategy to facilitate a new approach to
effectively managing scientific innovation.

The problem: The productivity gap

For
science-driven organizations—particularly those developing products
based on modeling at the atomic or molecular level—there is a
productivity gap that spans the entire innovation-to-commercialization
cycle. This productivity gap exists because traditional information
technology solutions have proved incapable of adequately managing the
complexity of scientific data and processes and the volumes of
unstructured data characteristic of scientific R&D. Scientific
processes, for example, are difficult to automate and track, and
therefore information is hard to access and reuse during the scientific
and product innovation and commercialization cycles. Critical scientific
insights and context from the discovery and development stages are
never transferred to the commercialization operations of a business
because downstream enterprise software cannot handle the unstructured
data generated in the R&D cycle. Key parts of the innovation process
are consequently lost, along with actionable insights that could bring
novel products to market more quickly and cost effectively.

As
a result of this productivity gap, innovation is slowing. Manual data
collection creates costly bottlenecks requiring repetition and processes
that can fail to comply with regulatory standards—potentially leading
to rework or even product recalls, slowing time-to-market and
threatening product quality. The productivity gap also hinders the
ability of science-driven organizations to respond to industry trends
such as outsourcing and globalization.

“The
challenge for science-driven organizations is the large number of
creative cycles required to develop and commercialize great
innovations.” says Mike Burkett, research vice president at Gartner,
Inc. “Bottlenecks that slow down or reduce these cycles result in
product of lesser quality or that’s late to market. Industries that have
automated and integrated product and manufacturing process development
have seen time-to-market improvements. Many science-driven industries
remain in the early stages of adopting the same successful practices.”

To
learn more about the scientific innovation gap, visit the micro-site
and download the IDC Manufacturing Insights whitepaper, “Accelerating
Science-Led Innovation for Competitive Advantage,” sponsored by
Accelrys. Join the discussion on scientific innovation lifecycle
management by registering for the webinar on May 17 at 9 AM PST. This
webinar will be hosted by Accelrys with Joe Barkai of IDC Manufacturing
Insights as the featured speaker.

Scientific innovation lifecycle management and the Accelrys Enterprise Platform

As
a first crucial step, Accelrys is introducing the new Accelrys
Enterprise Platform to support industry efforts toward closing the
innovation productivity gap. The Accelrys Enterprise Platform offers the
first scientifically aware, service-oriented architecture (SOA) that
enables the integration and deployment of broad scientific solutions
spanning data management and informatics, enterprise lab management,
modeling and simulation, and workflow automation.

“Effective,
efficient, end-to-end innovation is critical to the competitiveness of
science-driven organizations,” said Accelrys President and Chief
Executive Officer Max Carnecchia. “Accelrys is committed to working
closely with our customers and partners to close the innovation
productivity gap. The Accelrys Enterprise Platform is a game-changer for
organizations looking to deliver more competitive products, sooner and
more cost-effectively to market.”

The
Accelrys Enterprise Platform leverages the company’s deep domain
expertise in chemistry, biology and materials science, informatics,
predictive science and electronic laboratory management, which includes
late-stage laboratory execution for regulated industries. The platform
can manage structured and unstructured information encountered early in
the innovation cycle, as well as highly structured, automated batch
records required by lock-down production. Most importantly, the platform
integrates with existing IT infrastructures, including downstream
enterprise resource planning (ERP) and product lifecycle management
(PLM) systems. The platform’s ability to integrate with existing
infrastructure, as well as handle both structured and unstructured
scientific data, allows science-driven businesses to gain efficiencies
from their legacy systems, reduce complexity and improve productivity
from innovation through commercialization.

Source:  Accelrys