We didn’t add AI. We built the grid.

Walk into a room. Hit the switch. Light.

Nobody claps for transformers, substations, or the crew that mapped every feeder line. We take it for granted because infrastructure made it boring and reliable.

That’s the difference I saw at LogiPharma US in Boston: a lot of “AI” switches… and not enough grid. Demos that look slick until the first bad data point, missing SOP, or LSP handoff. Then it’s back to meetings and maybes.

PAXAFE showed the grid and the switch. Push “on,” and it works — every time.

How we actually got here

First was the wiring: rules encoded as SOPs and evidence for release, lanes / packouts / sites actually labeled, and passive + active signals reconciled so each lane has one truth. If you’ve ever connected a lamp to a wall socket without wondering if the house will burn down, that’s the level of boring we wanted. “Do the fundamentals so well you forget they exist.”

Next, the plugs matched across companies — traceability / lineage at handoffs and Logistics Services Provider(LSP) alignment on shared context (packout, dwell, service tier) so power flowed without frying the panel. Two companies, one handoff; zero translation drama. LSPs, carriers, packaging providers, and temperature-device providers were reading the same labels and playing by the same rules. Chain of custody and identity didn’t depend on someone’s memory or a PDF from last quarter.

With the current stable, we extended the circuits that proved themselves: a validated release flow and a waste elimination & savings pattern scaled to look-alike lanes with audit trails Quality signs off on. Translation: stop admiring pilots; copy-paste the winners to five more lanes and harvest real dollars. Launch fewer “experiments,” do more replication.

And finally, is the control tower room: a daily “what changed” brief, pre-approved alternates, and decisions in minutes. Cell & Gene rides a protected circuit where identity + condition + slot protection get the green light every time. You don’t argue your way to release; you prove your way to release. That’s not a demo. That’s reliability.

Bottom line: dashboards are the light switch; foundations are the grid. When weather hits — bad data, missed handoffs, odd dwell — the boring, encoded rules carry the day and the P&L.

“Turn the lights on” progress at a glance

What we heard on stage - Pharma’s needs & issues

Clean, interoperable data (or nothing works)
What it is: Duplicate/spotty device metadata, vendor-by-vendor schemas, missing context (service tier, dwell, packout).
Why it matters: AI can’t fix mismatched labels; bad inputs = coin-flip decisions.

Pilots → Platforms (scale > POCs)
What it is: Wins die as slides unless they’re cloned across like-lanes with SOPs + evidence trails.
Why it matters: Value is a pattern you can replicate, not a pilot you admire.

Decision intelligence (readiness over reports)
What it is: Daily change briefs, pre-cleared alternates, formal cross-company workflows.
Why it matters: The bar is five minutes from change → decision; indecision is the cost center. The logistics control tower either enables the decision or it’s a cost center.

Quality/GxP + Release, digitization & automation (faster and auditable)
What it is: Release as an evidence model: TOR + automation workflow + GxP auditable trail → digitized temperature release
Why it matters: Speed without GxP sin; boring (repeatable) beats heroic. Retire the emails & attachments

Risk playbooks & scenario planning
What it is: Scenario runs, alternates, contingencies — with pre-approval and a named owner.
Why it matters: Playbooks beat heroics; action beats meetings.

Security & integrity are process problems first
What it is: Theft modes + LSP/carrier vetting > gadget arms races; integrity triggers must flow into release logic, not inboxes.
Why it matters: Tech without process hardens nothing.

Advanced therapies raise the bar (Cell & Gene)
What it is: COI/COC, vein-to-vein, cryo; “visibility” = identity + condition + slot protection.
Why it matters: CGT is patient safety; treat it like the protected circuit.

What we heard on the floor - the ecosystem’s real blockers

Tech is changing fast → tech debt & buyer’s remorse
What it is: Teams realizing mid-cycle that non-Life Sciences(LS) platforms don’t fit; debating augment vs rip & replace.
Why it matters: Speed without fit = rework. LS-specific data, workflows, and validation shorten time-to-value (and regret).

Device & packaging providers are becoming software businesses
What it is: Providers racing to integrate/white-label with agnostic platforms; 3–4 years ago many didn’t see the point — now they’re knocking.
Why it matters: Data network effects beat hardware margins; integrated software = stickier, predictable revenue and better outcomes.

What ‘agnostic’ actually means
What it is: You can’t be both player and referee (sell the scale and certify your own weight).
Why it matters: Neutral data models + open interfaces or trust erodes.

Early biotech: start much earlier
What it is: At 1,000 shipments, you already have 1,000 failure modes (excursions, overpaying for packouts/logistics/services).
Why it matters: Cheaper and cleaner to lay the piping early than retrofit at 25k+ shipments and 2k+ lanes.

Simple Day-1 use cases win
What it is: The most-used features are simple, high-friction killers: passive data milestone overlays, shipment doc parsing via email, TOR resolution for false deviations/excursions.
Why it matters: You don’t need “agentic” on Day 1 to delight; nail the basics, layer automation on Day 2.

What we actually showed at Logi (not buzzwords)

• SOP Ingestion & Evidence Model
  Your rules, in the system. “What proves ‘safe to release’?” becomes code — not vibes. Same rule, every time, every lane. Repeatable. Auditable. No hallway debates.
• Lane Manager
  Labeled circuits. Product/packout/site MDM + passive/active reconciliation + dwell + service tier. “One lane, one truth.” If your device calls it Lane 14B but your TMS calls it Northeast-Beta, Lane Manager sees the alias and the context, and it’s still one thing.
• Release (Validated)
  The breaker. Accept, reject, or quarantine — with the evidence attached. Quality signs it, Legal sleeps at night, operations goes faster instead of louder.
• Risk & Alternates
  Automatic switching. If a segment trips, we cut to a safe path you already approved. Not “call a meeting.” Not “start a thread.” Switch. Log. Move on.
• ATHENA Decision Intelligence
  The control room. “What changed today, why it matters, and who does what now.” Five-minute readiness, not 50-slide reports. Prioritized by business impact — not follower count.
• Data-agnostic overlay
  Your devices, your carriers, your packaging. Plug in, power on. We don’t demand a religious conversion to join the grid.

“But we already have a control tower…”

Great. Does it tell you what changed today and give you a pre-approved move with an owner in under five minutes — with the audit trail Quality accepts?

If yes, keep going!

If no, you have a very nice wall-mounted nightlight.

But fear not! You don’t need to replace everything overnight. You can start by augmenting your control tower with some of the circuitry and wiring it’s currently lacking (tying SOPs, temperature release, AI-enabled recommendations, etc.) and enhancing the value of your existing solution, rather than going further and further into tech debt.

The fastest possible playbook (Q4-ready)

This isn’t overwhelming — it’s a repeatable pattern. We’ve run it enough times to know the order matters and the drama doesn’t. Do these five, in sequence, and you’ll see money in weeks, not quarters — no heroics, just wiring.

1. Write the rules.
   Codify the evidence model for release on three high-value lanes (include one CGT if you have it).
2. Clean the labels.
   Lane, packout, site MDM; reconcile passive + active; add dwell + service tier. Put QC gates on ingest.
3. Prove one pattern.
   Pick a waste elimination & savings pattern. Run it. Measure it. Make the win boring.
4. Clone it.
   Roll the same steps to five look-alike lanes. Track the savings and the audit trail.
5. Own the clock.
   Daily change brief → owner → action → done. Five minutes or less.

Spicy truths (because it’s me)

• A switch without a grid is wall décor.
• “We have AI” is a sentence. “We make decisions in five minutes” is a system.
• Dashboards don’t save product. Decisions do.
• Boring release is good release.
• If CGT isn’t on a protected circuit, you don’t have a control tower — you have a screensaver.

What happens next

Send me your three lanes. I’ll show you:

• The rule set we’d encode (release evidence model).
• The look-alike lanes we’d clone to next.
• The dollar waste we’d stop burning — and where the breakers will trip before they do.