It’s tough to imagine where we’d be as a society right now without the rapid response of pharmaceutical companies in developing COVID‑19 vaccines.
These innovative companies work hard to develop life‑saving medicines, and often experience rapid shifts in personnel, locations, and project focus. But one unchanging need is the critical importance of communicating safely, securely, and seamlessly, even across international borders.
Need for High Security
Pharmaceutical companies are similar to other clients in that they want to keep their manufacturing plant running smoothly. But pharmaceutical companies have a higher need for secure communications than a local manufacturing company; some of these companies are manufacturing major drugs — like the COVID‑19 vaccines.
They operate in a world where those secrets need to be maintained. Communication needs to be secure and encrypted. They can’t have people listening in on their communications. So cellphones aren’t really what they’re using; they’re using basic two‑way radio communication — but it’s part of a larger communications ecosystem.
Pharmaceutical communications have to ensure that every office and facility experiences safety and security — around the clock and around the globe. Pharmaceutical industry leaders are finding the best way to operate safely and securely across time zones and borders is to create a command center.
A command center allows them to use two‑way radios to communicate from anywhere in the world with their staff or their departments. Without that, they could use cell phones. But cell phones sometimes aren’t reliable, so they would be on a secure channel talking on a device.
A Communications Ecosystem
A pharmaceutical company needs a communications ecosystem that integrates voice, data, analytics and video. This isn’t something they buy off the shelf, a cookie‑cutter solution. It’s a highly customizable, scaleable, flexible system that’s custom built for their situation.
We’ll ask “What are your needs? What are your problems?” And this is how we’re going to solve them.
Motorola’s Safety Reimagined is an example of an ecosystem that unifies voice, data, video, and analytics in one integrated platform — that’s the kind of pharmaceutical communications system we’re talking to our customers about.
Adapting to Rapid Changes
Pharmaceutical companies are changing and growing so rapidly that their communications systems need to maintain maximum flexibility and adaptability. They have a number of moving parts. They’re always being sold, and they’re being challenged with budgets. They are hiring people, and then getting rid of half of their staff. One minute they need 50 radios, and the next minute they need only 10 — and we have supply chain issues.
All of this makes it even more important that their communications ecosystem is as efficient and effective as possible.
Some pharmaceutical companies are using trunked systems to be more efficient.
Trunking, Capacity, and Redundancy
Trunked two‑way radios use repeaters to instantly transmit signals across greater distances. They use a digital network that automatically connects users to available channels. It’s different from a conventional radio system where users have to select a channel, and sometimes wait for a free channel. Especially for a large company, a trunked system is a more efficient way of using less equipment.
Pharmaceutical customers benefit by building capacity and redundancy into their communications solutions.
When it comes to capacity, they want the flexibility to use an all‑call emergency and they need multi‑channel capacity where multiple people can talk at the same time. Redundancy means if they lose a repeater, they’ll always have another repeater.
That way, they’ll never be out of communication. It just flows to another repeater; they have multiple ways of communicating.
Levels of Redundancy
Truly secure systems have multiple levels of redundancy. If you’re using a repeater and you need it for coverage, if it goes down, you’re out of communication. So you go back to basic communication, just person‑to‑person with a very short distance.
And if the worst happens, and you lose everything and everything crashes, or it goes off the network, you still communicate radio‑to‑radio, and it’s a secure channel. There are layers of security built in.
Planning for Future Growth
Pharmaceutical companies can plan for the future by investing in a system that can easily migrate into a larger system as they grow. For example, MOTOTRBO is a very flexible system. It can help companies grow into their future growth and needs. It can expand to control alarms, emergencies, work orders, and a host of other needs.
What we’re building is not just radio and voice; it’s an ecosystem that brings in multiple ways of communicating.
In the end, pharmaceutical companies want to make pharmaceuticals — they don’t want to be in the radio business. So, we help match them with excellent service and manage the solution across whatever platform or country they happen to be in.
