The context
To help overcome these issues, BioPhorum and the Bio-Process Systems Alliance published An industry proposal for change notification practices for single-use biomanufacturing systems in 2020. This is a one-stop shop on change notification best practices for single-use biomanufacturing systems and provides new guidance on what information should be included in data packages. It also includes a decision tree to support change categorization.
Here, Sade Mokuolu, Strategy Implementation Lead, and Nicole Hunter, Global Regulatory and Validation Manager, at Watson-Marlow Fluid Technology Solutions (WMFTS), talk about using BioPhorum’s change notification best practices and how these have helped create a clearer and more efficient dialogue with customers.
The story
As part of our strategic commitment to provide end-to end fluid management solutions for customers, we knew we had to support our customers better when it came to notification of product changes. Additionally, there was a requirement to be involved in discussions to create alignment in the industry to ensure there was appropriate oversight provided to customers within this critical sector. There was no cohesive industry approach. We were also getting various timeframes to implement changes and there was rarely agreement on change severity. For example, one end-user would say, “This change is a major change and we want you to notify us in a 6- or 12-month period.” While for the same change, another end-user would say, “It’s a minor change and we only want a 3-month notice period.” Operating customer-to-customer like this is very inefficient and can lead to confusion.The outcomes
With its best practice document, BioPhorum has brought to industry a much more uniform approach in many areas, such as requesting information from suppliers. This has been one of the key benefits for us after joining the group – using a uniform approach that the collective industry has developed.
We’re now getting a single message from our customers rather than having disparate messages about how they want to see information that, previously, could change from customer to customer. Requests used to depend on an individual customer’s internal policies, which meant we had a complex operating environment.
Now, we’re not guessing what the end-user wants. Instead, we have an industry-agreed document to demonstrate how these changes should look. As a result of the industry agreed guidance and our continuous improvement approach, we have compiled the detailed supporting information in a stream-lined way to implement a change. Therefore, customers are more likely to accept these changes without the need for additional explanation. Mike Tucker, Global Quality Manager at WMFTS summed up the positive impact the change has had for the organization.
Since implementing the BioPhorum Change Notification approach, we've seen a much faster customer acceptance rate, saving time and effort for us and for our customersMike Tucker, Global Quality Manager at WMFTS
