With TQS buy, Cognizant bolsters its life sciences smart manufacturing capability

The Bottom Line: TQS will strengthen Cognizant’s digital capabilities in its journey to a mature Industry 4.0 manufacturing hub expanding value to its clients

Clients can benefit from Cognizant’s expanded capabilities post its TQS buy. It provides a platform for life sciences firms modernizing their technology-based solutions. Cognizant’s proficiency in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine language (ML) along with TQS’ industrial automation understanding will be key value propositions for the market. With this acquisition, Cognizant could position itself as a leading Industry 4.0 service provider in the life sciences domain.

Life sciences manufacturing has evolved with Industry 4.0 as accessing operations data has become easier, enhancing the ability to meet targeted KPIs. For example, production and equipment data helps decrease downtime through planning predictive maintenance, identifying root causes of production failure, and reducing changeover time. It also helps in quality management through inventory monitoring (temperature, humidity, etc.) and end-to-end process visibility, enabling product consistency and identifying specific issues with batch manufacturing. Despite the evolution toward Industry 4.0, life science manufacturers continue to maintain legacy information systems, preventing an integrated view and minimizing the benefits of digital capabilities. They need to build a single manufacturing thread to enable real-time data exchange among the stakeholders (both internal and external, including R&D [research and development], manufacturing operations, and supply chain). Also, life sciences manufacturers need to build specific technology capabilities for insights such as connectivity, data intelligence, cloud computing, and security. Overall, they need guidance and a roadmap about process management, data management (infrastructure, governance, intelligence), and change management (to increase collaboration among the stakeholders) to enable the tenets of smart manufacturing for their operations.

The TQS acquisition enhances Cognizant’s Industry 4.0 offerings

In July 2021, Cognizant acquired TQS Integration, an Ireland-based global industrial data and intelligence company. At the center of the acquisition is TQS’ capability in technology consulting and digital systems integration services for manufacturing data intelligence, which enables manufacturers to accelerate their digital transformations. TQS is Cognizant’s second life sciences domain acquisition in recent years (after acquiring Zenith Technologies in 2019) and fifth acquisition in 2021.

Cognizant has strong capabilities in life sciences manufacturing across smart factory solutions, connected systems, and business transformation, including the usage of good manufacturing practices (GMP). Thus, TQS’ data intelligence capabilities combined with Cognizant’s existing competencies can bring more actionable insights across some of the obvious target outcomes of life sciences manufacturing: operating cost reduction, product quality improvement, and production yield increase. TQS’ life sciences expertise and experience working across different enterprise IT and engineering systems can boost capabilities like data collection, data governance, and process understanding. For Cognizant, TQS’ expertise will help clients transition to Industry 4.0 and expedite the production of life-changing medicines.

Other service providers have enhanced their capabilities in the life sciences domain

Cognizant’s competitors are also focusing on organic and inorganic ways to augment capabilities:

• In 2021, Atos acquired Processia, a PLM (product life cycle management) system integrator offering services across industries, including aerospace, automotive, transportation, life sciences, discrete manufacturing, and high-tech sectors.
• In 2020, Atos and Siemens jointly built a digital twin solution for the pharmaceutical industry to improve efficiency and provide flexibility in manufacturing pharmaceutical products.
• In 2020, Capgemini announced its third set of intelligent industry offerings, Data-Driven Research & Development for Life Sciences.
• In 2020, Infosys acquired Kaleidoscope Innovation, which provides product design, development, and insights across medical, consumer, and industrial markets, bolstering smart-product design capabilities.
• In 2019, Accenture acquired ESP to enable life sciences clients to digitize and transform manufacturing operations.

Takeaways

Life sciences is a key vertical for Cognizant. The service provider has strong competencies in this domain. Clients can explore Cognizant’s expanded capabilities provided by TQS. Cognizant should prioritize TQS’ complementary capability (for example, blending Cognizant’s AVEVA experience with TQS’ knowledge of OSIsoft) to ensure a smooth transition with TQS’ client portfolio.