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SC-QC integration

How Bluecrux helped AstraZeneca QC attain supply chain synchronization

When global biopharmaceutical leader AstraZeneca sought to overcome the disconnect between its Quality Control and Supply Chain operations, it turned to Bluecrux for strategic partnership and technological innovation. Together, they deployed Binocs™ to bridge the gap, unlocking collaboration, increasing agility, and enhancing lab network visibility across 17 QC labs worldwide.

The challenge: AstraZeneca QC’s disconnect from SC

As part of a broader transformation agenda, AstraZeneca identified a key opportunity to better align QC operations with supply chain needs. Despite QC’s vital role in ensuring medicine availability, it lacked the integrated visibility and influence needed to respond to shifting production priorities.

    • Lack of visibility: QC teams relied on manual demand reports, delaying decision-making.
    • Missed alignment opportunities: QC had no voice to influence Supply Chain priorities.
    • Inefficiencies in resource planning: leading to bottlenecks, increased costs, and avoidable overtime.

Eric Barnett, Director of Quality Control Capacity and Modelling, reflected on the broader situation:

QC always wanted a seat at the table [in supply consensus meetings] and we could go but we weren’t getting any value from them because we didn’t have the capability to show what our capacities were.

The solution: Integrating AstraZeneca QC with SC

The AstraZeneca-Bluecrux collaboration allowed QC processes to be embedded within the SC framework, ensuring alignment and operational efficiency. This approach focused on three critical enablers of SC-QC integration:

  • 1. Shared insights platform

    Binocs provided a single source of truth by unifiying demand and capacity data across sites, offering long-term visibility and enabling QC teams to contribute meaningfully to strategic planning. By implementing a unified data foundation, teams across the globe gained access to a standardized, forward-looking view of capacity and demand.

    • Standardized reporting: “If you’re in Supply Chain, the QC outputs are all going to be the same reports no matter where in the globe you’re seeing capacity being presented from,” Eric explained. This consistency streamlined global discussions.

    • Long-term visibility: “What we have is a two- to three-year horizon of demand, so we can use that to analyze our capacity in the long run. With these data and insights, we can really collaborate and facilitate the conversations between supply chain and QC at our monthly supply consensus meeting,” Eric noted.

  • 2. Integrated decision-making

    Binocs allowed QC to participate directly in AstraZeneca’s monthly supply consensus meetings. Scenario planning tools empowered teams to simulate resource shifts and optimize lab throughput:

    • Capacity visualization: “Sites would know that they had overloads but they would have to look at multiple Excel reports, then try to figure out what’s driving the capacity challenges. […] So they would spend hours and days looking at that but now, in Binocs, we can look at those reports and get the information within minutes,” Eric said.

    • Scenario planning: Teams simulated the impact of adding analysts or equipment and quickly reprioritized workloads to address capacity constraints.

  • 3. Actionable insights

    With automated capacity analytics and bottleneck identification, Binocs helped AstraZeneca pinpoint and address the drivers behind lab delays – from instrument availability to analyst certification gaps:

    • Late work analysis: Delays could now be traced back to specific drivers, such as equipment limitations or analyst competencies, allowing AstraZeneca to implement targeted solutions.

    • Demand pain points: Binocs enabled QC to share spikes or overloaded areas with supply chain and work together to evaluate flexibility or move products.

The results: Aligning QC and SC

The Bluecrux-AstraZeneca partnership has already delivered measurable results:

  • QC now plays a strategic role in global planning discussions
  • Proactive scenario planning has replaced reactive rescheduling
  • Automated reports and dashboards have reduced manual effort and improved visibility

As Eric Barnett noted, “we can make sure that we have the right analysts with the right training capabilities and the right number of instruments at the right time so that we can meet our lead times and get our patients the medicines that they need.”

What’s next

Looking ahead, AstraZeneca plans to further embed QC-SC integration as a business capability. Together with Bluecrux, the next stage will focus on:

  • Resiliency frameworks built into Binocs to manage capacity volatility
  • Cross-functional training and shared process design
  • New performance metrics powered by Binocs to track productivity, sustainability, and lab agility
This collaboration is more than a technology deployment. It reflects a shared vision between AstraZeneca and Bluecrux: to redefine how Quality Control and Supply Chain operate together, with Binocs as the backbone of that transformation.

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