Thermo Fisher Scientific Safeguards COVID-19 Vaccines Running Cognizant on AWS

With many of its devices embedded with Internet of Things (IoT) technology, Thermo Fisher Scientific had a vision of creating a connected services solution that would convert device data into usable information for its customers. Working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AWS Partner Cognizant, the company developed Thermo Fisher Connect, a computing platform that leverages the power of the cloud, connected devices, and advanced analytics. Through workflow orchestration, remote monitoring, and predictive maintenance, Connect enables Thermo Fisher customers to eliminate operational risks and protect critical scientific materials ranging from irreplaceable genetic samples to lifesaving vaccines.

Thermo Fisher Scientific serves the global scientific community through a combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience, and pharmaceutical services, empowering its customers to create a cleaner, safer, healthier world. While the company has a long history as a leader in the scientific community, it has become much more widely known since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, first by accelerating the delivery of testing kits and more recently through its ultra-low temperature freezers that allow vaccines to be shipped and stored safely.

Like many of Thermo Fisher’s devices, these refrigerators are built using native AWS connectivity linked to the company’s AWS IoT Core infrastructure. To turn the massive amounts of data they generate into actionable insights, Thermo Fisher worked with Cognizant to build Thermo Fisher Connect, a cloud computing platform that links IoT data with advanced analytics tools. “What we’re really trying to do is turn data into information, and then use that information to orchestrate workflows, both in terms of actions for our service people and technical support people, as well as actions for our customers,” said Stephen Carlson, Senior Director, Digital Innovation at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Cognizant used PTC’s ThingWorx IIoT Platform and AWS IoT services to create the Fisher Thermo Connect platform, which continuously monitors remote devices and optimizes conditions for scientific samples and products, including irreplaceable genetic materials and temperature-sensitive vaccines. With the Connect platform, customers can eliminate the operational risks of sample, material, and data loss as well as the risk of being out of regulatory compliance through predictive and condition-based maintenance. They’re also able to improve mean time to repair, first-call case resolution, and first-time fix, which are all critical metrics when systems are down and time is of the essence.

When it comes to protecting vaccines, customers use the Connect platform to monitor the health of their freezers, which must be kept at a specific temperature range to prevent spoilage. The freezers emit telemetry data, which is connected through the device link and the instrument connect to the Connect platform.

In developing the Connect platform, Thermo Fisher and Cognizant started by understanding the challenges the platform needed to address, beginning with establishing a data lake using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to facilitate the information sharing required to drive dynamic reporting and artificial intelligence/machine learning. To automate workflows and customer engagement, the platform needed to interface with Thermo Fisher’s existing legacy business systems to pull customer, contract, and contact data. Further, as new devices entered the Thermo Fisher ecosystem, there needed to be a way to auto-provision them; there also needed to be a way to create digital twins of those devices and inform the twins with device telemetry and customer data. Finally, the platform needed to connect back to customers through dynamic reporting and advanced analytics to show the health of their devices and the integrity of their materials in time to address any concerns.

An integral part of the Connect solution, PTC’s ThingWorx IIoT platform provides the modeling environment to represent the connected assets, such as lab equipment and instruments, along with the telemetry data from these assets. Thermo Fisher also uses ThingWorx to rapidly build applications for remote service, remote diagnostics, condition-based monitoring, and other use cases.

“This project really moved us forward in our vision for connected services,” said Carlson. “It was very much focused on instruments and instrument integration, data reporting and analytics, the ability to drive predictive and condition-based actions, and then integration with our backend service management and business systems.”

“In building Connect, we developed five basic applications that reduce operational risk and mean time to repair for Thermo Fisher customers,” added Chetan Rangaiah, Director, IoT and ER&D at Cognizant. “Those apps are data collection, data visualization, automatic device provisioning, alert management, and data sharing. Together, they use cloud machine telemetry data to transform product service and diagnostics for connected medical devices in the field.”

To develop these applications, Cognizant relied on a number of AWS solutions, most notably Amazon Kinesis for data ingestion and Amazon CloudWatch for monitoring and observability. “Without the help of AWS enablers, we’d be addressing escalation calls rather than getting kudos from end customers,” noted Rangaiah.

Ultimately, the Connect platform enables Thermo Fisher customers to leverage IoT technology to drive meaningful results when they’re needed most. Carlson concluded, “Thanks to the core technologies of AWS and the professional services of Cognizant, we were able to bring this critical solution to life faster than we ever could have done on our own.”