eschbach, a software developer for the process industry, has introduced a new batch tracking solution for its Shiftconnector enterprise manufacturing platform.
eschbach
The solution is designed to enhance collaboration between production, quality assurance (QA), and quality control (QC) teams, streamlining the batch release process.
The new feature integrates data from key systems—including MES, LIMS, ERP, and QMS—into a shared, real-time dashboard tailored to user roles. According to digitalisation experts, this can reduce manual data entry by up to 75%, cutting operator input time from two hours to just 30 minutes per day. The result: fewer errors and faster time to market.
If a batch encounters an issue during production, the system automatically notifies QC with details such as delay duration and updated sample arrival times. This allows teams to adjust schedules proactively.
A drill-down menu provides contextualised data on the issue, while built-in collaboration boards enable real-time, cross-functional communication to resolve problems before they escalate. The system is fully GxP compliant and GAMP 5 validation-ready, supporting audit trails and digital signatures.
The platform also offers historical batch performance insights through charts and heat maps, helping teams identify bottlenecks and define “golden batch” profiles to support continuous improvement.
For manufacturers, the batch tracking solution delivers measurable operational efficiency by reducing release cycle times, improving cross-team alignment, and minimising costly delays. This leads to faster product availability, improved compliance, and greater responsiveness to market demands.
“One of the leading causes of batch release delays is a lack of visibility across teams, leading manufacturing teams to be misaligned in their priorities, while negatively affecting planning around critical processes like testing,” said Andreas Eschbach, founder and CEO of eschbach.
“By contrast, a shared view on batch status enables all teams, regardless of where they may sit in the production cycle, to accurately track a batch’s position from one end of the process to another. This allows any delays that may have knock-on effects to be anticipated and planned around, closing the gap between production, QA, and QC, and cutting daily release management routine tasks from hours to minutes, delivering measurable efficiency improvements.”
The batch tracking solution is fully integrated with Shiftconnector’s Artificial Manufacturing Intelligence (SAMI) suite, enabling AI-powered insights. Operators can use SAMI Chat, a conversational interface, to ask questions like, “Which batches are currently in process and what’s their status?” The AI responds in natural language with a detailed list of batches, their statuses, and key timing information.
Users can also ask more complex questions—such as the cause of a delay—and request the AI to compile the data into a table or report. eschbach is also developing dashboard widgets that will provide AI-powered, contextualised insights into delays at a glance.
“Ensuring total visibility of batch status across teams is essential to increasing alignment between individual manufacturing departments,” Eschbach said. “While this is only one piece of a larger puzzle, ensuring all teams are pulling in the same direction is critical to shortening release times and, in turn reducing time to patient for vital medicines.”