Achieving Business Agility in the Highly Regulated Pharma World
In a business environment where a single deviation from published standard operating procedures can delay release and even require destruction of finished product, the mere mention of process change can be unnerving. Read below and in the case studies listed about Leap Technologies' experience bringing a new approach for achieving Operational Excellence to Pharma Companies that is fast, efficient and safe.
Leap Insights & Innovation
With shorter proprietary product lifecycles, decreasing margins and increasing operating costs, Pharmaceutical Companies are racing to find the right balance between speed and efficiency and compliance and product safety. Most firms in the industry have adopted some form of Lean Six Sigma to bolster their Operational Excellence initiatives.
But, as a recent study conducting by PharmaManufacturing.com points out, most Pharmaceutical Companies are struggling to get a return on their Lean Six Sigma investments. The usual culprits cited in the study are middle management indifference, too much emphasis on tools versus outcomes and difficulty in sustaining an infrastructure of Black Belts.
Leap Technologies recent experience in the Pharmaceuticals Industry indicates that there is a another, more fundamental barrier to Operational Excellence that is often not being addressed. That barrier is the inability of large Pharmaceutical Companies to effectively bridge the gaps across organization lines to unlock performance breakthroughs. These "whitespace problems", where solutions can only be achieved through cross-functional cooperation, require a different set of skills and tools in addition to those found in conventional Lean Six Sigma deployments.
Leap has applied its Fast-Change Approach on a number of Pharma Operational Excellence Initiatives where breaking down functional silos has been paramount to success. The remarkable results achieved in short timeframes indicates there is significant opportunity for Pharmaceutical Companies to increase their business agility (speed with compliance). The key is a willingness to break from convention in their approach to improvement.
Select from the menu on the left to review recent examples of Pharma Operational Excellence Projects that improve business agility by streamlining processes while reducing opportunities for error.