In this conversation, Mike shares his approach to transformation at Fujifilm and reflects on lessons learned from years at Pfizer, where he helped drive some of the early work on connected worker technology.

We talk about what it really takes to improve efficiency at scale—from user experience design and process mapping to smarter training and selective AI adoption. Mike also discusses the changing nature of tech talent, why entry-level programming roles are disappearing, and how he’s thinking longer-term about embedding AI into biopharma workflows without losing sight of the people doing the work. Whether you're early in your transformation journey or figuring out how to scale with limited resources, this is a refreshingly grounded take on what real progress looks like from a man who has seen it firsthand.

Doug Power, Event Director: How do you identify which digital transformation projects will deliver the most business value and ROI?

Mike Tomasco: For me, it always starts with strategy. What’s the company’s strategy? Where are we trying to go? When I was in the biopharma innovator space, it was all about discovering and making new therapies, and then selling them. Here, in the CDMO world, it’s about becoming the best possible partner for large biopharma companies and that means changing our own mindset - from being seen as a provider to being a value-added, long-term partner. That transformation is hard. I still see people clinging to the old way of thinking - extremely cost-conscious, which is understandable, but it makes people afraid of big changes. Once you understand the strategy, I like to work backwards: what has to be true for us to get there? That leads to a timeline and roadmap. For example, if we want to be a truly integrated, data-driven company in five years, then I look at where we are today. Each site is different. Some have heavy technical debt. Some are newer. We have to create a common language across all sites to align on what transformation even means. We’re using the BioPhorum Digital Plant Maturity Model to assess each site - not just to measure maturity, but to build a shared understanding of value streams and work practices. It’s been eye-opening and a powerful way to align and plan ahead.

Doug Power, Event Director: With your experience at Pfizer, can you share some examples of benefits you achieved using real-time analytics and predictive insights on the shop floor?

Mike Tomasco: At Pfizer, one of our major focus areas was something called golden batch analysis. It starts with first principles science and higher-order math, where you use data to understand how a process works and then build predictive models to optimize that process. The goal is to get more product from the same raw materials and labor. In biological processes, even a 2–3% yield increase downstream can translate to millions of dollars. I’ve heard of companies claiming 10% or more, though of course, results vary by product. Toward the end of my time there, we began layering GenAI on top of our golden batch tools. The idea was to help operators better interpret the results. At first, the engineers pushed back but this wasn’t for them. It was about providing the operator with a broader context. We called it “Batch Buddy”. Essentially, it was a kind of cockpit view for operators. If something like pH is drifting out of spec, the system can flag it and suggest actions before it becomes a problem. There’s still a human in the loop but we’re moving toward a future where AI can safely automate more of those decisions. Quality leaders will tell you: the fewer human touches, the better. Manual entry errors can cause anything from batch losses to recalls. Automation gives you speed, safety, and quality. And that brings up a broader workforce issue. How do you still attract young talent when there are fewer traditional entry-level jobs because you don’t necessarily need them anymore? You still need people, but the skill set is shifting toward higher-order thinking.

Doug Power, Event Director: Let’s talk specifically about connected worker projects. What are some of the key pain points you've encountered during project delivery, and how have you approached overcoming them?

Mike Tomasco: I think the first challenge is a broad one: do you even understand your own processes? Do you understand what someone’s day-to-day experience looks like based on their role, their persona? One of the best hires I ever made at Pfizer was a user experience designer. She built a whole competency around mapping those user experiences. Designers like her think differently than engineers or consultants. They bring more creativity, more empathy and they’re great at sitting with someone and mapping not just the steps they take, but how they feel at each point. So, what we did, and what I want to replicate here, though it takes time, is start with detailed process maps. Get the right people in the room, make sure it's representative, and then conduct structured interviews with the people who live in the process every day. You document all the tools they touch and you annotate that with how they feel at each point. We literally used emojis—happy face, sad face, angry face—because it gave a visceral sense of what the user journey really looked like. That gave us a clear picture of how hard it is to get work done. Everyone has the best of intentions when designing systems and processes, but over time, the environment can become really complicated. So, before you start solving anything, you’ve got to understand where you’re starting from. If you just dive in and start fixing things without that context, you risk solving the wrong problems.

Doug Power, Event Director: Were there any other lessons learned from your experience - things you’d advise others to avoid during connected worker project delivery?

Mike Tomasco: Yeah, the big one is: don’t assume that just putting all your data in the cloud is going to fix your data problems. If anything, it might make them worse, especially when it comes to data quality, cleanliness, and overall data management. You must know how to manage what you’re putting up there, and that’s not a given. Another thing I’ve learned is that a use case–driven approach works best. That said, it needs to sit within a broader framework and you still need a strong vision, mission, and strategy in place. Where I am now we’ve built out that foundation. We’ve got a strong vision and a solid mission. I’ve designed a structure to go after the right things and now we’re plugging the gaps. At my level, I can say, “Here’s the vision, here’s where we’re going.” However, for the broader workforce, that’s not enough. They need to know: What does Plank One look like? What do I need to do specifically to move things forward? We’re working to get down to that level of clarity. Another key lesson is around breaking down silos. We renamed our internal teams because the old names reinforced siloed thinking. We used to call them “solution towers,” which, by definition, sounds isolated. A “quality solution tower,” for instance, should work across the full business, but the name didn’t reflect that. It made everyone inside that team think narrowly—like their only job was to put in a new QMS or LMS. That’s only part of it. The bigger question is: how are you connecting into the full, end-to-end fabric of the business? We now have a group focused on building those connections.

Doug Power, Event Director: Can you talk about how you've used connected work solutions to bridge the skills gap and enable rapid onboarding?

Mike Tomasco: At Pfizer we did a lot of work around using VR for onboarding and training. There’s direct evidence it helps, especially with task-based training. One example is simulating movements inside a laminar airflow hood. VR lets you get that muscle memory down before you’re in the real environment and that’s been really successful for us. It’s not just for onboarding - it’s a recruiting tool too. Younger people coming into the workforce tend to respond to it. It’s a lot more appealing than reading a thousand pages of SOPs.

Doug Power, Event Director: What kind of strategies have you put in place, or are putting in place now, to drive change readiness and ensure successful user adoption?

Mike Tomasco: I think a lot of it comes down to philosophy and how you approach things. One of the core philosophies I try to instill in my team is this: simplify processes and experiences to drive outcomes. If we’re not making something easier to do, improving the experience, or creating some kind of positive outcome, then we’re probably doing the wrong thing. I can think of projects where we’ve made things harder for the end user. Even if it’s the right thing to do in theory, it raises the question: are we doing it the right way? And that’s where we need to pause and rethink. That whole mindset ties into design. With big ERP systems, you don’t have a lot of flexibility - they come how they come. You pretty much have to bang them in and hope for the best. It’s painful, and it usually takes five to ten years before you really fix it. That’s just the reality - I’ve seen it time and time again over the last 30 years. But in the data and digital space, it’s different. It’s so much easier now to control the experience. I try to focus on use cases where technology can be applied in a way that solves real problems - and where we can design a simple, intuitive experience. If something makes a person’s job easier, there’s almost no barrier to adoption. At the end of the day, the more intuitive the solution, the easier change management becomes. One of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten was: “We didn’t really need any training for this.” When we rolled out some of the digital operations tools at Pfizer, most of them only needed about an hour of training.

Doug Power, Event Director: Are vendors improving the user experience of the tools and apps they’re rolling out? Is it something they’re really thinking about?

Mike Tomasco: The world has evolved. You can’t sit on a 30-year-old control system and be happy with a green screen, even if it’s technically efficient. So, how do you build something better on top of that? I’ve always been a fan of what’s called a composable experience. Imagine a browser window where you can place whatever content you need inside. You build a shell that gives people a unified experience, tailored to their role. It’s like the old corporate portals from 20 years ago, but now you can construct them much more efficiently. Think of it as a cockpit for the shop floor operator. When I come in, I can see where the last shift ended, what I need to do, my personal tasks, even a training reminder. The same shell works for a lab worker, but with slightly different content. To make that possible, you have to invest in persona-based design, journey maps, and really understanding how people do their jobs day to day. That’s where good design comes from.

Doug Power, Event Director: Have you invested in any vendor solutions yet to help address the challenges around data?

Mike Tomasco: Not yet. Right now, I’m hiring a new data lead focused on data, analytics, and AI. We’re stepping back now and thinking strategically. If we look five or ten years down the line and imagine what the future looks like, what has to be true at each step to get there? Our job is to bridge that vision back to today. In the data space, if we’re saying we want to embed AI into every biopharma process, what does that actually mean? We need to get more specific and work backwards from that vision. First question: do we even have connectable equipment in those areas? If we don’t, then we’re talking about a different kind of investment. Or we need to find another way to approach it. If the long-term goal is full connectivity and access to equipment data, that needs to shape the roadmap. The challenge is that some of this equipment is 40 years old. Are we going to replace it? That depends. There’s a lot to weigh up.

Doug Power, Event Director: Last question. Looking ahead to the next two years in your digital transformation plans, and thinking about what you'll see on-site at the Connected Worker Manufacturing event - what kinds of technologies are you most interested in? What would be relevant for future investments?

Mike Tomasco: For me, one of the big ones is the OT layer of security. I want to understand how those platforms and capabilities support a connected worker experience. How do you tie the value of locking everything down with the need to make data available and accessible? Those can be conflicting goals. Engineering teams will often say, "just air gap everything." That sounds great for security, but in practice, it falls apart. As soon as someone needs to do a patch upgrade, the air gap is broken and the system is exposed. That’s how a lot of major breaches happen. What I want to know is whether there are capabilities out there that allow both things to be true at the same time. Right now, we’re doing what we can to secure the shop floor, but I also want all that data flowing into a secure cloud. So, how do we make those connections work? Understanding what’s already available in the marketplace is really important to me.

Want to hear more from digital manufacturing leaders like Mike Tomasco?

Mike will be speaking at the Connected Worker Summit in Chicago this October, drawing on his experience at both Fujifilm and Pfizer to talk about what it really takes to lead cultural change in digital transformation. His session, “Lessons in Leadership – Managing Cultural Resistance to Digital Change,” will explore how to navigate organizational pushback, build momentum, and turn strategy into action, especially when resources are tight and expectations are high. Join us October 14-16 for real-world case studies, workshops, and practical guidance from the pioneers transforming digital manufacturing from the inside out. Download the agenda to see the full speaker lineup and what’s in store.