Demand Intake

Every January, the Global Head of Manufacturing Engineering receives forty-seven capital requests from twelve sites, totaling $1.2B against a $600M annual envelope. Half arrive as PowerPoint decks, a quarter as one-line emails from site directors, and the rest surface during hallway conversations at the quarterly business review. By the time the PMO has compiled a prioritized list, it is March, and three projects have already started spending unauthorized funds.

ProBeya's Demand Intake module replaces that chaos with a governed, auditable pipeline. Every capital request, from a $50K equipment upgrade to a $200M facility build, enters through the same structured portal, is scored against the same criteria, and follows the same lifecycle to approval or rejection.

The Demand Problem in Pharma

Pharmaceutical and manufacturing organizations face a unique demand challenge. Unlike IT portfolios where requests are relatively homogeneous, capital demand in pharma spans fundamentally different investment types:

• Capacity expansion: New fill-finish lines, bioreactor trains, packaging suites
• Technology transfer: Moving a product from R&D to commercial manufacturing
• Regulatory compliance: FDA warning letter remediation, EU Annex 1 upgrades
• Sustaining capital: Equipment replacement, facility refurbishment, utility upgrades
• Digital transformation: MES deployment, serialization, digital twin initiatives

Each type carries different urgency dynamics. A compliance request triggered by a regulatory observation cannot wait for the annual capital planning cycle. A technology transfer is driven by clinical trial timelines outside the PMO's control. ProBeya's demand model accommodates all five request types (new_project, enhancement, compliance, maintenance, research) with urgency levels (critical, high, medium, low) that drive triage priority.

Request Lifecycle

Every demand request follows a server-enforced status flow with validated transitions:

Draft → Submitted → In Review → Approved / Rejected → Converted

Requesters can withdraw a request at any point before approval. Invalid transitions are rejected with a clear error message. This enforcement prevents the common antipattern where projects are "pre-approved" through informal conversations, bypassing governance.

Submission Requirements

Before a draft can advance to submitted, three fields must be present:

• Title -- A concise name that will appear in pipeline views and steering committee reports
• Description -- Detailed explanation of the scope, technical approach, and expected deliverables
• Business Justification -- The strategic rationale: why this investment matters to the organization

Optional but recommended fields include estimated budget, estimated duration, strategic objective alignment, and tags for cross-cutting categorization (e.g., "biologics", "site-dublin", "gmp-remediation").

tip

Encourage requesters to attach a one-page business case document using the business case template feature. Templates define structured sections (text, currency, date, rich text fields) that standardize the information submitted across all sites. A well-designed template reduces review cycle time by 40-60% because reviewers know exactly where to find the information they need.

Scoring and Prioritization

Quick Scoring

Reviewers apply a weighted score using portfolio-level scoring criteria. The system computes a weighted average and stores it on the request, enabling pipeline ranking by strategic value rather than by who submitted first or who has the loudest voice.

In practice, a pharma PMO might score demands on five criteria: strategic alignment (weight 0.30), regulatory urgency (weight 0.25), financial return (weight 0.20), technical feasibility (weight 0.15), and resource availability (weight 0.10). A compliance remediation triggered by an FDA 483 observation would score 5/5 on regulatory urgency, immediately surfacing it to the top of the pipeline regardless of its financial return.

Decision Framework: When to Approve

Not every demand that scores well should be approved. Consider this decision matrix:

Score Range	Urgency	Recommended Action
Top quartile	Critical/High	Fast-track: approve and convert within one review cycle
Top quartile	Medium/Low	Standard path: approve in next portfolio review
Middle two quartiles	Critical	Escalate: requires steering committee discussion
Middle two quartiles	Medium/Low	Defer: hold for next planning cycle
Bottom quartile	Any	Reject with rationale, or request resubmission with stronger justification

Batch Operations

PMO reviewers can select multiple requests and approve or reject them in a single operation. The system processes each request individually, skipping any that are not in a valid state for the requested action, and returns a summary of successes and failures. This is essential during annual planning cycles when thirty or more requests need disposition in a single steering committee session.

Pipeline Analytics

The pipeline view shows request counts grouped by status, providing a funnel visualization of how many requests are at each stage. Key metrics include:

• Average review time: Computed from submission-to-review timestamps (in days)
• Conversion rate: Percentage of submitted requests that reach approved status
• Backlog depth: Number of requests waiting more than 30 days in "submitted" status

tip

Review pipeline analytics monthly. A growing backlog of submitted requests signals that the review cadence is too slow, a common problem when gate review committees meet only quarterly. Consider moving to monthly demand review sessions for requests under $5M, reserving quarterly steering committee time for major investments.

Attachments and Documentation

Requesters can upload supporting documents at any point in the lifecycle (up to 100 MB per file, stored in S3-compatible storage). For pharma capital requests, typical attachments include:

• Equipment specification sheets and vendor quotations
• Preliminary layout drawings and P&ID diagrams
• Regulatory impact assessments
• Capacity modeling outputs
• Technology transfer protocols (for product transfer requests)

Comments and Collaboration

Threaded comments allow reviewers and requesters to discuss the demand request without leaving the platform. This creates an auditable record of the decision rationale, critical for GxP environments where "why was this project approved?" is a routine audit question.

Conversion to Project

Approved demand requests convert into full PPM projects, carrying forward the title, description, budget estimate, and strategic alignment. The conversion creates a linkage (via conversionProjectId) so the portfolio can trace every active project back to its original demand request, maintaining the audit chain from business need to capital expenditure.

Worked Example: Fill-Finish Line Expansion

1. Draft: Site Dublin submits a request for a new fill-finish line. Title: "Dublin Fill-Finish Line 4". Budget estimate: EUR 85M. Type: new_project. Urgency: high.
2. Submitted: The request includes a one-page business case (demand increase from new biologic product launch), equipment specifications, and a preliminary schedule.
3. In Review: The PMO scores the request: strategic alignment 4/5, regulatory urgency 3/5, financial return 5/5, technical feasibility 4/5, resource availability 2/5. Weighted score: 3.75/5.
4. Approved: The steering committee approves with a condition: resource availability must be resolved through a hiring plan before execution begins.
5. Converted: The request becomes PPM project "Dublin Fill-Finish Line 4" with the approved budget, linked WBS template for fill-finish capital projects, and stage-gate template "Pharma Capital G0-G5".

Permissions

Action	Required Role
Create / edit draft	Any authenticated member
Submit request	Request creator
Start review	PMO Reviewer or Admin
Approve / Reject	PMO Reviewer or Admin
Batch actions	PMO Reviewer or Admin
Withdraw	Request creator only
Quick score	PMO Reviewer or Admin

caution

Once a request is approved, edits are no longer possible. Ensure all fields, especially budget estimates and strategic alignment, are accurate before the final review session. If a material change occurs after approval, withdraw the original and resubmit.

Related Features

• PPM Overview -- Module-level context and capability map
• Projects -- Where approved demands become active PPM projects
• Scoring & Optimization -- Scoring criteria shared between demand intake and portfolio optimization
• Budgets & Costs -- Budget lines created when demands convert to projects