From the Founders

Over the past two decades, information has transformed the face of the modern enterprise. Organizations used to be locally focused, paper-based and data poor. Today, the advent of the modern database and Enterprise-class systems has created a vast knowledge base of information. No longer is the challenge to move forward as a group: the challenge now is to process and analyze the vast array of operating data at our finger-tips, and react in real time to those events. The successful enterprise of the past was the one who had the most data: the successful modern enterprise is now the one who can turn information into knowledge the best.

In the same way that Wikipedia and Google have revolutionized the way in which we collect, maintain, and access data, simulation technology has the ability to revolutionize our thinking around the key questions facing the enterprise. Simulation has been underutilized for decades, promoted as a tool to visualize a physical system but never really seen as an analysis tool in its own right. This is changing, however, as firms increasingly recognize that discrete event simulation has the power to assimilate large quantities of operational data and deliver meaningful analysis.

"dynamic simulation is potentially one of the most powerful tools for simultaneously achieving and assuring quality [as well as] improving efficiency" (Fox, Joseph S. and Teschke, Dustin, "Dynamic Simulation in Pharmaceutical Operations" Pharmaceutical Engineering, September/October 2007)

This insight comes at a critical time for the enterprise, where groups within the organization are fragmented and the rapid growth of information makes the flow of knowledge between these groups increasingly difficult. Research and Development, Process Development, Engineering, Operations, Supply Chain - all these groups affect product delivery. But tools have increasingly focused on meeting the needs of just one group.

We at Bioproduction Group believe that the next shift in operations development is beginning. The shift of the 90s towards a single linked enterprise has not yet yet linked operations management and problem-solving. The biotech sector is already being demanded to answer questions reliably and expeditiously: armed not only with a researcher's understanding of data but also with an analyst's sophisticated ability to find patterns upon which exceedingly important developments turn. However, those expectations can only be met with the right technology, technology that so far, has been lacking.

In the field of biological operations, Bio-G's solution aims to break the paradigm of information collection and focuses on technology-assisted knowledge generation. We use simulation technologies to model a virtual operating environment for the company, stretching across technologies, unit operations and plants to the entire network. Our technology aims to make sense of the massive wealth of operational data, and use this to drive understanding and change.