From paper-heavy laboratories to a connected digitalization strategy

Paper-based laboratory processes holding back digital potential

The client's global CMC organization, including analytical development, drug substance, drug product and device development across multiple international sites, generated much of its valuable development data on paper, in Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. Although laboratory instruments already produced digital outputs, results were manually transcribed into documents and stored in a document management system that functioned primarily as a file repository.

As a result, scientific data lacked structure, searchability and interoperability. Knowledge remained trapped in documents rather than becoming reusable organizational assets, while manual processes consumed valuable scientific time and introduced unnecessary risk. Over time, paper-based ways of working had become so deeply embedded that the operational burden was largely invisible to the organization itself.

Start with people and processes, then choose the technology

Rather than beginning with software selection, NNIT started by understanding how work actually happened across the laboratory organization.

Working closely with stakeholders from all nine departments, NNIT documented individual laboratory processes and identified eight common workflow patterns that existed across the organization. This process-first approach revealed that while departments performed different scientific activities, they shared many of the same underlying operational workflows.

Based on these insights, NNIT designed a target architecture for a modern digital laboratory ecosystem and developed a phased implementation roadmap prioritized according to business value, technical readiness and implementation risk.

The engagement delivered a complete transformation blueprint, including:

• Target laboratory architecture: the next-state design for a connected lab ecosystem, including reference architecture

• Multi-year phased roadmap: Sequenced by business value, technical readiness, and risk, with individual business cases and one-page project summaries for each initiative

• Program foundation: governance structure and a competency development plan to sustain the transformation internally

Turning complexity into a clear transformation roadmap

NNIT combined deep laboratory domain expertise with practical digital transformation experience to help the client see its organization as an interconnected system rather than a collection of individual departments.

By abstracting department-specific activities into common laboratory workflows, NNIT created a foundation for objective technology decisions, implementation prioritization and long-term digital strategy. This enabled the client to move beyond isolated system discussions toward a cohesive digitalization program built around data quality, accessibility and future scalability.

The client's steering committee has approved the program for execution, and a dedicated program manager has been appointed to lead the implementation, turning the roadmap from a strategic document into an active digitalization program.